EASTENDERS legend Wendy Richard’s screen son James Alexandrou collapsed after hearing she had died.

The actor, who played Martin Fowler from the age of 11, choked back tears as he said yesterday: “I think I was in denial about the whole thing.”

James, now 23, had refused to believe the woman he called “Mummy number two” was so near to death from cancer.

He thought 65-year-old Wendy — who played Pauline Fowler — “was tough as old boots and indestructible”, adding: “I collapsed because I wasn’t expecting it.”

James recalled how Wendy told him when he first joined the BBC soap “we were now a family and I had to work very hard and act my best”.

He added: “She brought me up on set and taught me to be a lovely young professional.”

And he revealed how every Mother’s Day he would send Wendy — who had no children of her own — a card.

James and Natalie Cassidy, his on-screen wife Sonia, were among the first to visit Wendy’s heartbroken husband John Burns after her death on Thursday.

Todd Carty, 45, who played Wendy’s oldest on-screen son Mark, revealed how the time he went hurtling into a tunnel on Dancing On Ice had made Wendy laugh in her last few weeks.

He said: “I’m glad I brought her a little joy.”

Actress Laila Morse, 63, who plays the soap’s Mo Harris, has agreed to become an ambassador for Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life in Wendy’s memory.

She said: “It’s my way of doing my bit for her. I’ve had breast cancer and Wendy encouraged me to get checked out.”

Sir Paul McCartney who worked with Wendy on the 1965 Beatles movie Help! also paid tribute to her yesterday.

He said: “She was a lovely lady and a real babe, a really nice girl. We had a lot of fun working with her.

“She went on to do great things. Over the years we’d bump into each other and I would give her a hug.”