EastEnders: Pam St Clement opens up about Pat Butcher cameo in Peggy Mitchell’s death scene

Peggy’s former sparring partner (and close friend) appeared as a hallucination
Surprise cameo: Pat Butcher returned as a hallucination in Peggy Mitchell's death scene
BBC/Kieron McCarron
Ben Travis18 May 2016

Dame Barbara Windsor said an emotional goodbye to EastEnders, retiring her character Peggy Mitchell once and for all.

The legendary soap actress came back for a storyline to kill off the former Queen Vic landlady, returning alongside Ross Kemp as her son Phil.

Peggy’s final scenes also featured the return of another beloved character: Pat Butcher, Mitchell’s former rival who later became her close friend.

Butcher, who was herself killed off in 2011, appeared to Peggy in a near-death hallucination.

Speaking about her return in the iPlayer documentary Peggy Mitchell: Last Orders, actress Pam St Clement explained: “I said, ‘oh, how can I [come back], I’m dead, I couldn’t possibly come back’

“Well, the approach is to say, right, I am appearing. Am I appearing as an ‘independent’ Pat? Am I a figment of Peggy’s imagination, in terms of she’s seeing what she would like to see? So she’s getting affirmation?

“In other words, she’s not getting Pat – she’s getting her idea of what she wants. That was quite a difficult one, I had to speak to Michael Owen Morris, the director, about that.”

The Mitchell family in EastEnders

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Windsor was understandably pleased to have St Clement back to help her say goodbye.

“[Pam] was lovely, she said, ‘oh it would be my honour’, she was very gracious and came back,” she said.

Peggy appeared in EastEnders for over two decades, and was initially written out of the show in 2010. However, having returned at various points over the years, her time in Albert Square is officially over.

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