June Spencer: Veteran Archers star who found art could imitate life

June Rosalind Spencer was born on 14 June 1919, just six months after the end of World War One.

Her acting career began at the age of three, when she was cast as King of the Land of Nod in a school play. When she heard the audience laugh, June knew it was the life for her.

She went to Nottingham High School for Girls, which she found “very stark, grey and cold”.

She was forced to give up sport – her favourite lesson – when a doctor somehow misdiagnosed a heart condition.

An only child, her father was a “sensible and supportive” biscuit salesman, but her mother was another story.

A “complex woman”, Mrs Spencer had once aspired to the stage herself, but – according to her daughter – “just gave up on life… and decided she was an invalid at the age of 40”.

June Spencer had little choice but to leave school to look after her mother – who eventually lived until she was 94.

Miserably, mother and daughter sat together in a darkened room in case Mrs Spencer had “an attack”.

Her headmistress was angry, complaining that her former pupil was throwing her life away. “I was frightened of her,” June later recalled.

“She told me, ‘Of course, you can’t expect to get anywhere without your School Certificate’.

“I have thought of those words many times since, particularly when I received my OBE.”