Barbara Windsor - Peggy Mitchell

[parkerman]

Barbara Windsor has described her colourful life as simply "the distance between two pear trees".

Speaking at a ceremony in west London where she planted a pear tree, the former EastEnders star remembered a similar tree at her childhood home.

Barbara, 73, said: "I grew up in the East End in a two up-two down. The first bit of green I had was when were allocated a prefab house in Stoke Newington with a garden and it had a little pear tree.

"Ever since I was a little girl I always wanted to live here in Marylebone. The first tree I could have known was a pear tree and here I am all these years later, planting a pear tree in Marylebone. So life has been the distance between two pear trees."

And she's traded on her pair ever since...