Stefan Booth Online

TV Times Interview: In my Mother’s name …

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Category: Interviews with Stefan

Published on Sunday, 07 August 2011 10:30

Written by SBO Admin

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The EastEnders star tells us how the kidney disease that claimed his mum’s life and runs in his family could be eliminated …

 

As Greg Jessop in EastEnders, Stefan Booth is in for a nasty shock.  Any day now, he’s set to stumble upon the uncomfortable evidence this his wife Tanya (Jo Joyner) has resumed her horizontal dialogue with her first husband, wily old Max Branning (Jake Wood).  And then it’s going to be no more Mr Nice Guy for good looking Greg.  

Originally signed to film just five episodes of the soap, Stefan, 31, is now an Albert Square regular.  ‘A year later I’ve got my own dressing room,’ he says, with a broad smile.  ‘My mum’s ultimate dream for me was to join the cast of her favourite show.  I’m so glad she lived long enough to see me in it.’

 

Killer Disease

 

Sadly, his mum, Mish Booth died in May aged 67, from complications triggered by polycystic kidney disease (PKD).  Now her youngest child – Stefan has an older sister, Tammy, 42, and brother, Damian, 40 – is using his celebrity profile to draw attention to a condition that is far from rare and which, with proper funding into vital research, could be controlled and even eliminated.

 

Kidney disease, explains Stefan, is a silent killer.  According to Kidney Research UK, there are currently 47,000 people in the UK who need treatment for kidney failure.  Some 3,000 die waiting for a kidney transplant each year.

 

Because her organs weren’t functioning properly – PKD causes fluid-filled cysts to develop around her organs – Mish’s blood wasn’t efficiently filtered.  ‘That accelerated her painful arthritis,’ says Stefan, ‘and led to brittle bone disease.  Mum first started using a walking stick when I was a teenager.  For any journey, she needed a wheelchair.  For a couple of years, she had to use a dialysis machine at home twice a day.’  Finally she had a transplant.

 

She called it ‘Sidney the kidney; it was her sense of humour that kept her going.  When she was in public, she always misbehaved.  She was the ultimate naughty St Trinian’s schoolgirl.  She was the sweetest, funniest person in the world.  She always knew, without you having to tell her, if something was bothering you.’

 

Growing Pains

 

Stefan worried about her all the time he was growing up.  It affected my education.  I did really badly in my GCSE’s because they coincided with a time when she was ill again.  No-one wants to see their mother semi-conscious and rigged up to a morphine drip. ‘The whole business has left me with an abiding dislike of hospitals.  I was away at boarding school and then I’d be told she was in hospital.  I was scared I’d never see her again.  It was frightening. 

 

I’d been aware of her mortality since I was a small child, so it shaped my personality.  I never rebelled as a teenager because I wasn’t trying to get away from my parents.  You have a different attitude to life if every Christmas you wonder whether this will be the last one your mother will be around to enjoy with the family.’

 

Mish inherited the PKD gene from her father, and Army brigadier, who died in his fifties. 

 

Each child of a carrier has a one in two chance of inheriting the gene.  By a cruel twist of fate both Stefan’s siblings carry the gene.  ‘But neither suffers from the more acute version of the disease,’ he says, ‘and they seem to be able to live normal lives, as long as they take tablets to keep their blood pressure at a low level.’

 

Stefan was the only one not to inherit the rouge gene.  ‘I had my first MRI scan in my teens and a second just a few years ago.  Being clear means, of course, that there’s no chance of my children being carriers.’

 

Stefan is married to Debbie Flett, an actress, model and former Play Your Cards Right Dolly Dealer.  They have two children: three-year-old Tabitha and Benjamin who’s one.

 

‘I’m so glad mum lived long enough to meet them,’ he says.  ‘I have some treasured photographs of her with the kids.  Sometimes I get them out and laugh.  But sometimes I get them out and weep.  But then, grief is a very strange process.’

 

Facing the future

 

Whatever his mood, the former Hollyoaks and The Bill star doesn’t let it stand in the way of banging the drum for Kidney Research UK.  ‘I’m determined to use my mother’s death to highlight this life-threatening disease.  That way, perhaps something good can come out of something bad.  I’d rather not be doing it, to be honest, because I’d prefer to let her memory rest in peace.  But I know this is something I must do in her name, however much I may sometimes find it distressing.’

 

At Easter, Stefan had to work on EastEnders.  ‘I didn’t want to,’ he says, ‘but mum said I must. And, of course, I knew I’d never let the show down.  It’s just that I wanted to spend more time with her.  It’s as though I knew, somehow, that I would see her alive again.  I remember burying my head in her chest and saying, “Oh, mum, this is the safest place”.’

Shortly afterwards, a bone snapped in Mish’s leg and she was admitted to hospital to have it re-set.  It’s where she caught pneumonia, which led to her death.  ‘Her  kidney couldn’t deal with the infection,’ says Stefan.  ‘We knew she was on borrowed time but because she’d always bounced back from every setback, we believed she would again.’

 

‘I remember sitting by her bed after she’d gone and thinking that because there hadn’t been enough money for researching this disease, I’d had to kiss goodbye to my mum.  And that’s a very hard pill to swallow.  It’s why I want to make a big stink about this.’

 

By Richard Barber

For TV Times Magazine dated 30^th July – 5^th August 2011

 

For more information about PKD or to complete a free kidney disease health check, please visit: www.kidneyresearchuk.org

 

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