Coronation Street actress, Shelia Bernette dies aged 94

The star had a lengthy career across stage, film and television, playing Sister Delaney in the ITV soap in the early 1970s, as well as appearing in the long-running BBC variety show Good Old Days between 1968 and 1983.

Her friend Peter Kosta described her as “just fun and laughter” and confirmed she died on Monday.

The 77-year-old actor told the Press Association how he first met Bernette while working in theatre alongside Only Fools And Horses star Sir David Jason.

He said: “I was looking for digs, and she said, ‘well, if you’re clean, I have a spare room in my house’.

“She always supported me in everything that I wanted to do, and always came to see me in everything I did, whenever she could.

“I have extremely fond memories of her.”

Kosta said he spent nearly two hours with Bernette on Sunday, shortly before her death.

He added: “We were talking about the good old days.”

Ddescribing her as “very funny” and “very feisty”.

The Royal Variety Charity said Bernette would be “very much missed” by those who worked with her and the wider theatrical community.

Born Sheila Poncini in London on March 30, 1931, she grew up in a family of Italian heritage.

Bernette appeared in The Good Old Days from 1968 to 1983, performing songs and sketches in the style of Victorian and Edwardian music halls.

Her television credits also included The Morecambe And Wise Show, The Dick Emery Show, The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, Cooper, Just Like That starring Tommy Cooper, The Little and Large Show, and the UK version of Candid Camera, where she was one of the original practical jokers.

She appeared in the 1970 Royal Variety Performance, introduced by Leslie Crowther as Russian defector ballerina Natalia Nokemova performing The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, and also featured as a singer on The Black And White Minstrel Show between 1967 and 1969.

Her film roles included Ticket To Paradise (1961), The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), Three For All (1975), Car Trouble (1986) and Driving Aphrodite (2009), which marked her final film appearance.

In later years, she starred as Mrs Poshington, a hotel guest who never leaves, in CBBC sitcom Hotel Trubble from 2008 to 2011.