Towards the end of her life, Perrie took up work as a celebrity bingo caller in Blackpool. She also made the occasional television appearance, the last of which was Channel 4's countdown of the Greatest TV Soap Moments in 2004, presented by her friend Mike Reid. Perrie's life and work were acknowledged at the British Academy Television Awards in 2006. Personal life Perrie married carpenter Derrick Barksby (1929 – 17 January 2015) on 14 October 1950 and gave birth to her son Stephen John Barksby on 14 May 1951. Her terminally ill son came to prominence in the 2000s campaigning for assisted suicide. Stephen died on 1 April 2016, aged 64. In her biography, Perrie admitted that she had had several affairs in the course of her marriage. Unbeknownst to the public, for most of her working life she and Barksby had lived separately. Barksby chose to live alone in their Yorkshire home whilst Perrie took up residence in Salford to film Coronation Street. After a few public separations, Perrie insisted in 1996 that she and Barksby were back together for good. Perrie suffered intermittent health problems, including a heart attack and a cancer scare. After learning that her son had been diagnosed with AIDS in 1994, Perrie started to suffer from depression. She said: "Any mother will understand the pain but for me it was much worse. He was my only child and we went through this under the spotlight of publicity." During her retirement in 2000, the Daily Mirror newspaper spoke to Perrie, and in an interview she revealed that she was still suffering from bipolar disorder, as well as memory loss, and had recently spent ten weeks in a psychiatric hospital. At various stages of her life, Perrie was addicted to tranquillisers, and suffered serious side-effects from slimming pills. She admitted to once being addicted to gambling, and confessed that she had "blown" more than £250,000 over the years on one-armed bandits. Abuse of alcohol was another problem, and her heavy drinking eventually earned her the nickname "Champagne Perrie". She said: "Although I polished off pints of the sauce ... I was not an alcoholic; I just had no inhibitions." Perrie died in Rotherham aged 74, on 24 March 2006, four months after suffering a stroke. Selected credits Acting Self References External links Lynne Perrie Fan Website The Guardian's obituary, March 27, 2006 The Independent's obituary, March