Iconic soap actress June Brown, who has died at the age of 95 , was a national heroine both on screen and off.
The veteran actor, who was known and loved for playing chain-smoking Dot Cotton on BBC soap Eastenders , spent her life fulfilling many unexpected roles – not least her stint in the forces during World War II.
The Suffolk-born telly icon was evacuated during the Second World War to the Welsh village of Pontyates in Carmarthenshire.
Towards the end of the war, as a young woman, she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRENS) and was based in Scotland.
June joined up at the tender age of 17 and completed her basic training in Balloch.
But Brown found herself less than impressed with her new surroundings – despite having spent her childhood up to that point suffering unimaginable loss.
June never got over losing her big sister Marise when she was just eight years old, three years after the death of her brother John Peter.
She told the Scottish Herald in an unearthed interview in 2013 that she had "no desire to return to the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond - it would bring back too many unpleasant memories. Scrubbing floors at five in the morning! I simply wasn't used to it."
The national treasure had hoped to be trained as an aircraft mechanic, but instead became a cinema operator.
June had the gruelling job of showing the horrific newsreel films that came out of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
She was tasked with the job as she was the only projectionist in Ardentinny in Argyll. "It was extremely shocking for a girl of 18. We were a very innocent generation," she previously said.
She was posted in the south-east of England before being sent back up to Scotland at the end of the war.
It was here that she fell in love with handsome Sub-lieutenant Colin Parsey.
They became lovers and saw each other on and off throughout the conflict, once staying in a small hotel together as husband and wife.
"That was quite a common occurrence during the war as you might not see the other person for some time. There was no certainty during the war."
Despite her unsavoury job and the obvious circumstances, Brown previously told how she had a good war.
She was spared heartache, perhaps for the first time in her life after such a tragic childhood.
"It's dreadful to say but I never lost anyone. I had so much fun," she remarked.
During her time in the Navy, she discovered acting and won a place at London's Old Vic Theatre school when the war was over.
It was there that she met her first husband John Garley - but sadly he took his own life in 1957.
The following year she remarried Robert Arnold and the pair were together for 45 years until his death in 2003.
Their four and a half decades together were anything but quiet as they had six children together in just seven years - although their second daughter Chloe was born premature and sadly died.
