Coronation Street’s Peter Ash shared his emotional response after his co-stars surprised him following his soap exit.
The truly tragic scenes which aired yesterday (Monday September 9) brought an end to this chapter of Paul Foreman’s motor neurone disease journey, after his diagnosis almost 18 months ago.
We’ve seen his condition steadily grow worse during that time, first losing his mobility, and later struggling to speak.
In recent weeks, he’s had to rely on a ventilator when struggling to breathe. During Friday’s episode, he made brother Kit Green (Jacob Roberts) promise not to tell their mum Bernie Winter (Jane Hazlegrove) about a particular health episode, for fears she would stop Billy from enjoying a much-needed night out with the lads.
While actor Pete was saying goodbye, he was met with a lovely surprise from co-star and onscreen partner Daniel Brocklebank (Billy Mayhew) and Billy’s adopted daughter Summer Spellman (Harriet Bibby).
After the producer asked him how it felt to say goodbye to the soap, Pete replied: ‘A whirlwind of emotions, and I’ve met the most wonderful people….’
Daniel and Harriet later surprised him with a balloonand card which led Peter to say: ‘You f****s, and I just swore so you can’t use any of this.’
Speaking about Monday’s tearjerking episode, Pete previously said: ‘We’d been building up to this moment for 18 months, as actors, so to put that final block in was like, “We’re here.” It felt so far ahead in the future when we were first initially pitched the storyline’ Daniel told us.
‘So for us as characters it was harrowing, but for us as actors, we shot everything pretty much chronologically. So the scene where Billy arrives and holds on to Paul, who’s obviously already passed, was Pete’s last scene.
On what the next few weeks hold for the family post-death, he continued: ‘Billy and Bernie are obviously quite different in their approach to life and subsequently therefore death as well.’
‘They’re both grieving for somebody that they love, but both of them think they’ve got dibs on grief stakes, one as a mum and one as a husband.
‘Billy’s very traditional. The funeral’s coming up – Billy wants hymns, Bernie wants pop songs, Billy wants a hearse, Bernie wants something else. There is conflict over the next few weeks.’
