EastEnders' Cheryl Fergison, 59, suffers devastating stroke after losing life savings

Sitting in a bustling cafe, TV favourite Cheryl Fergison carefully sips her coffee.

It's not the heat of the drink which is making the former EastEnders star cautious but the fact she needs both hands to hold the cup - her right too unreliable on its own thanks to a stroke.

"I would say it was probably one of the lowest times in my life," says the actress, 59, of the devastating illness which struck in May.

"One of the hardest things is to process what it does to you. One minute you're walking, talking, going to the shops; the next your world is rocked. It's shocking."

READ MORE: Ruth Langsford shares 'great sadness' for son Jack after admitting 'I got jealous'

READ MORE: BBC comedian died penniless with body unclaimed for weeks after tragic death

Speaking exclusively to the Mirror ahead of the release of her explosive new memoir, Behind The Scenes, the mum of one - best known for her role as loveable Heather Trott in the soap - explains she was at home watching TV when she first realised something was wrong.

"I started to feel funny, with a really bad headache at the back of my head.

"I went to bed but couldn't settle. When I got up in the night to go to the bathroom, my balance completely went and I had to stop myself from falling over. My whole right side felt numb, heavy and tingly."

Fearing the worst, Cheryl called her son Alex. "He worked with elderly people and recognised the symptoms. He phoned an ambulance straight away."

Cheryl, who had surgery for cancer of the womb in 2015, was rushed to hospital in Blackpool where doctors confirmed she had suffered a stroke.

The illness left her unable to walk - it initially took three people just to help her to the toilet - and she still uses a stick.

"I have had to retrain my brain. I couldn’t even pick up a penny at first,” says Cheryl, who lives in Cleveleys, Lancashire.

"You lose the ability to coordinate your hands, to walk properly, your balance is gone. It’s frustrating and makes you angry. But I’ve started to recover; I am coming on in leaps and bounds now."

Still having physiotherapy, she admits being ill has given her pause to reflect, especially as she is about to turn 60.

"Material things don’t matter; they can be lost or broken, but memories are everything. Friends, family and laughter - that’s all that matters.

"Going into this new decade is a chance for a new me. I'm not ready to be put out to graze yet."

Her no holds barred memoir is shot through with that trademark fighting spirit - a spirit tested to the limit when she was left penniless, broken and in crippling debt after being scammed by her own accountant.

The actress - who just last year admitted she was forced to use food banks - says she was “gobsmacked” to discover she owed hundreds of thousands of pounds to the taxman after her accountant pocketed her cash for five years.

She learned the devastating news in 2012, at what should have been one of the happiest moments of her life.

"I’d just walked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house,” Cheryl recalls. “I was on such a high; I’d been paid £175,000. I felt excited, positive - like the future was finally opening up,” explains the star, who had married her Moroccan husband Yassine El Jamouni, who is 20 years her junior, just months earlier.

"My phone just kept pinging. Some messages were congratulations but others were from people I knew in the entertainment industry. One read, ‘We are in big trouble. Ring me. It’s about our accountant.’ That was the moment my entire world collapsed.”

The man Cheryl had trusted with her finances had seemed utterly respectable. "I thought he was looking after me,” she explains. “But he was lining his own pockets.

“For five years I paid him faithfully, and he didn’t send any money to the tax office. My savings, my security, everything was gone.”

Police launched an investigation. Cheryl was later told the fraudster had been picked up by Interpol in connection with another scam, but she never saw a penny back.

“Even though I was the victim, I still had to repay it. It's taken me so many years to recover. I had to sell my house,” she says.

Cheryl, whose acting career has seen her perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as Little Britain and Doctor Who, admits it’s sometimes been hard to battle private setbacks in the public eye.

“You’re expected to keep up appearances. Barbara Windsor told me: ‘keep putting a brave face on when you go out there, darling; give them a show, put on a smile.

“But at the same time the pressure is on. When you’re famous, people assume you’re loaded. I was paying restaurant bills I couldn’t afford just so no one knew I was struggling. But behind closed doors, I was totally skint.”

The actress has decided to tell her full story after recently being ridiculed online for selling EastEnders scripts and singing in her local Chinese restaurant to earn cash.

“Just because I am off the telly, doesn’t mean that I haven’t gone through some very hard times. I don’t let it get me down though.”

After being scammed she was diagnosed with womb cancer less than two years later and what followed was an uphill battle with her physical and mental health, including publicised issues with self harm.

Cheryl also opens up about being homeless with her then toddler son back in 2002, years before fame came calling. At the time, she was trapped in a toxic marriage to her first husband, Afghan refugee Jay Saddiqi, whom she wed in May 2000.

But their relationship was volatile and they split up. Broke, she spent eight months living in a women’s shelter with her son Alex, then a baby. Life in the shelter was bleak, but Cheryl was not going to let it destroy her.

“In 2018, many years later. I found myself sitting on a bench in Dartford on the exact same spot I used to sit in when I was homeless but this time because I was performing in a hit musical at the theatre just a few feet away.

“I thought, ‘Wow, I have come so far.’ Life has a funny way of going full circle.”

Her book confronts deeply painful moments, including being the victim of a sexual assault as a child and her hidden battle as an adult with binge eating.

“I would eat in secret, when I was happy, as a treat, and when I was sad. It was my coping mechanism,” she admits.

But there are also many hilarious anecdotes from Cheryl’s star-studded life including how her Albert Square character’s obsession with George Michael led to a real life friendship.

“You know that episode, where Heather and Shirely [Linda Henry] go to George Michael’s house? That was based on real life.

“Once when walking with Linda and Cliff Parisi in Highgate, they rang the bell and ran away, leaving me to chat to his housekeeper. It was so embarrassing but by the time I had got to the EastEnders set George Michael left me a voice mail. He started sending me gifts and we became mates. He was such a kind man.”

The book also allows Cheryl to set the record straight about her marriage to her much younger Moroccan husband.

“People will gossip. We’ve been through a lot, we come from different worlds. But I know the truth.”

Despite the ups and downs, Cheryl insists she has been “very blessed."

“I’ve met so many amazing people and had some incredible highs - my life has been more of a soap opera than EastEnders.”

Now, as she approaches her big birthday, she's optimistic about the future.

"If there's one thing I’ve learned, it’s that money and fame don’t equal success. I’m looking forward to the next chapter. Bring it on!"

Cheryl Fergison: Behind The Scenes (published by Mirror Books, £22) is on sale on Thursday in all good bookshops and Amazon