June Brown: best quotes from Dot Cotton actress as TV world mourns her death - from Eastenders to real life

June Brown is one of Britain’s most recognisable soap actors and now the country is mourning the beloved actress.

She passed away at the age of 95 on Monday 4 April 2022, with many looking back on her cherished career.

The actress is best-known for her portrayal of Dot Cotton (later Dot Branning) in BBC’s Eastenders and has been a familiar face in UK homes for the past 37 years.

Here are some of her wittiest and most inspirational quotes to remember the queen of the British soap.

1. “Acting is a very strange thing. It isn’t about trying to feel, for me, it is about thinking.”

2. “I could have played Dot as a very dreary woman with a list of illnesses, but I played her with an edge, so it was funny.”

3. “I was taught by my drama school that it’s not what you feel, it’s what you make the audience feel.”

4. “As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on. I’d be utterly bored if I stopped.”

5. “A little girl once wrote to me saying she was coming to live with me - because Dot always stuck up for her son.”

6. “Old people are considered worthless fuddy-duddies and often overlooked, which makes them sink into loneliness. I noticed it as soon as I started to age.”

7. “Give us a tea, Lofty. And a glass of water so I can take a Paracetamol.”

- June’s first line as Dot Cotton on Eastenders in 1985.

8. “I can cope with losing you... I never expected anything different. I know how to be on my own.”

- as part an entire monologue in which Dot records a message for her husband Jim, who has suffered a stroke. It was the first time a monologue had been performed by a character over the course of one episode in British soap history, and June won a BAFTA for her performance in this 2009 episode.