EastEnders star feared she would never work again after stroke

Eastenders star Cheryl Fergison returns home to appear on our screens in homegrown soap Centra Deli Drama

As the cameras started rolling on her new project in Ireland, Cheryl Fergison felt a sense of joy and elation. Because just months before, as her body recovered from the aftermath of a stroke, the EastEnders star wondered if she would ever be able to work again.

It felt like a new beginning, she says now, when she arrived in Dublin to begin filming a fun new soap – Centra Deli Drama – for the Irish retail brand.

“I’ve had cancer in the past, and thank the gods that I’ve recovered from that. But this was something that literally came out of the blue,” says the UK actress, who played Heather Trott in the hugely popular soap opera. She suffered the stroke in May.

“I was walking down the seafront in the morning with my son. In the evening, I was falling out of bed, and that was it. I couldn’t walk. I was taken to hospital – blue lights and all of that. I couldn’t walk for about a week or so.”

Cheryl with actress Jennifer Zamparelli on the Centra Deli Drama set

In the months since, she has worked hard on her recovery. “I walk with a stick, quite confidently. Without a stick, I’m getting further and further.

“I’m doing bits, then I puff myself out. I have to just have a sit down, and I’m fine. The right side of me is still a little bit numb, but I couldn’t even raise this hand before. I couldn’t even put my fork to my mouth. But it’s very heavy – my hand is heavy.”

As well as fears for her health, Cheryl feared that she may have to give up the acting career she adores. Taking on the social media campaign in Ireland, she says, helped give her the impetus to get back on track.

“In terms of work, it was devastating. I just thought, that’s it. I’ll never work again. I live for my work, I really do. Then along came Centra and they took a punt on me, and they went: ‘You know what? We know what’s happened to you’.

“They were sympathetic, empathetic, they adapted stuff to help me, and it was the light that I saw. When I got told I was (getting) the job, my head automatically went to: ‘That’s what I’m getting better for, the next stage. That’s what I’m going to be able to do. There are several people who have taken a shot on me, and it’s getting better and better’.”

The actress brings her soap skills to the fun social series written by Sharon Mannion (The Young Offenders) and featuring a cast which also includes Jennifer Zamparelli.

Cheryl and EastEnders co-star Cliff Parisi at the British Soap Awards in 2009

Filmed in the store’s Drumcondra branch, it aims to tap into the Irish spirit of community life.

“It’s like a miniature soap in itself and it has all these amazingly funny characters that you take to within seconds – they’re in-your-face characters. It’s a brilliant idea and a new concept,” says the actress, who was greeted by some of Ireland’s many EastEnders fans while spending time here.

“When you’re shooting at night, the shop was closed at night and we had to get all the shooting done within the hours of when people left the shop to the early hours of the morning,” recalls Cheryl.

“That was fun in itself, because the delivery people come, and there was a couple of guys looking at me, waving, and they weren’t so sure. As soon as I opened my mouth, it was: ‘Oh, hello!’”

Over her busy career, Cheryl has starred in shows including The IT Crowd, Little Britain, Casualty and Dr Who as well as her busy stage career.

But it was as the hilarious Heather Trott – known for her love of cheese, karaoke and George Michael – on the BBC soap that she first made a name for herself.

Introduced as a guest character in 2007, she would go on to play Heather for five years.

It was a role that changed her life as an up-and-coming actress, she remembers fondly. “When I first joined EastEnders, I’d watched it from day one, so I was absolutely so humbled to be in a place where I loved and I had watched these characters on my screen. They’d come and gone, and there were iconic characters still going. People like

Phil Mitchell, played by Steven McFadden, who is now like my big brother in real life, I’m godmother to his kids.

“I did work hard to do this and get there, because of my passion and my love for things, and my positivity, which is something that I’ve always had.

People say to me, is your glass half full or half empty? And I say, I’m lucky to have a glass at all. In a way, the thing about EastEnders was the same – they gave me a chance, and I ran with that character, and it was fantastic.”

Cheryl with the cast of Centra Deli Drama

She is grateful to the medics and loved ones who helped her get back on her feet this summer, in particular her son Alex Siddiqi, also an actor and writer, for his care and support. “He’s been my rock, and he’s there, and he just flourishes, and that’s amazing.”

In recent weeks she brought out her autobiography Behind the Scenes, which she was encouraged to write by her Irish friend Maureen Nolan, of The Nolan Sisters fame, with whom she previously starred in Menopause the Musical.

“I don’t believe in biographies that are written and they skim over the surface,” she says of the experience.

“They just want to put lots of pictures in it and just tell you all about the wonderful things they’ve done in their life. That’s not my book. My book is there to basically be a lifeline for some people, I think, in some ways.

“Yes, it tells the great people I’ve met, people I’ve worked with, some very funny stories involving Paul O’Grady and George Michael and Dame Barbara Windsor. But it’s also about my life and my struggles.”