Coronation Street legend Sue Cleaver has admitted that she was left "humbled" by the exit storyline for her character Eileen Grimshaw.
After 25 years on the cobbles, Eileen will wave goodbye to Weatherfield this Friday after deciding to move to Thailand and join her son Jason - played by Ryan Thomas, who returned especially for the story - in order to open a bar together.
"I said very much that I would like her to go off to pastures new, you know, to kind of mirror what I'm doing in a sense," said Cleaver. "And I just think it's time for a change.
"So it was perfect, I'm so happy with the ending, and I was so humbled by it and the way it had been written and what it is. I felt very grateful to have such a wonderful ending written. It seemed very, very apt."
Cleaver revealed that Eileen's final scenes, which also involve her son Todd (Gareth Pierce) and old friends Steve (Simon Gregson) and Tim (Joe Duttine), were not actually the last ones she filmed.
"It was filmed out of order so my last scene on screen was filmed a few days before my last day so that made it a lot easier," she said. "There were a few moments where it hit me and I was like, 'Oh wow' - you know, it's like not so much, the job, but also the people that we take... we take people for granted. You know, they're just there all the time, and then you go, 'Oh God, that's it. That is the end.' That is strange.
"But I had a nice dinner out with the Grimshaws and the Street Car boys on the evening after we'd filmed that final Eileen scene, and then we were back in to do other scenes. It was a very strange thing. And I very much when I'm going, I'm going, and I don't like goodbye, so the greatest thing for me was that it was the very end of the day when I finished so I knew I wouldn't have loads of people in there because I find that sort of thing uncomfortable."
She added: "I'm never going to feel like I'm that far away. I have too many connections there. I've got too many friends who are there, my husband still works there, so it's always going to be a huge part of my life, and maybe one day she'll bob back."
Eileen's departure plays out on Friday's episode of Coronation Street, which streams from 7am on ITVX and airs at 8pm on ITV1.
Neil Wilkes
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