Sue Johnston, one of most loved actors, talks to Laura Davis about her autobiography

TORMENTED” is the word Sue Johnston uses to describe her relationship with her mother, the woman who “encircled” her with love yet rarely paid her a compliment.

Her new autobiography is named in her memory and contains anecdotes the Warrington-born actor could never have brought herself to share with Mrs Margaret Wright.

It opens with Johnston’s vigil at her mother’s deathbed; with her realisation that many unspoken truths are best left unsaid. In the end, she simply whispered the words “Mum, I had the best childhood I could ever have had.”

Born in her Auntie Millie’s house during World War II, Johnston grew up in Whiston, surrounded by cousins content never to move far from home and aunties who whisked her off to an air-raid shelter a few hours after her birth, leaving her mother in confinement.

Her descriptions make it sound almost Dickensian – baths took place once a week and she would look forward to visits from the rag-and-bone man and pop cart. Her toys consisted of a few board games and a pack of cards.

But despite this, she looks back on her upbringing fondly.

“I know I was loved, totally loved,” says Johnston, 67. “And even in the breakdown of our whole relationship I know fundamentally she loved me – we just couldn’t get on.

“It was an almost tormented relationship. We weren’t at all alike and I think it was the differences she couldn’t cope with.”