Miriam Margolyes has shared her shame and remorse at “hitting” her stricken mother in a “moment of frustration and rage” while caring for her.
The 83-year-old Harry Potter star’s late mother, Ruth, saw her health deteriorate after suffering a stroke. She died in 1974.
“After her stroke, Mummy was semi-paralysed, in a wheelchair and couldn’t speak,” the actress recalled.
“Daddy looked after her but once a week I’d bring all the shopping. I’d wash her and take care of her. I adored my mother, but in a moment of frustration and rage, because when you are looking after someone it’s hard, I hit her.
“It was the most wicked thing I have ever done I will never forgive myself.
“The heart-rending part was as soon as I'd done it, I burst into tears and kept saying, 'Mummy I'm sorry' and she just held me and she forgave me,” she added in an interview published in with the July edition of Saga Magazine.
Elsewhere in the chat, Margolyes who has been in a relationship with a woman for 55 years, recalled her parents’ reaction when she told them about her sexuality, saying she felt reviled like a “Nazi”.
"I told my parents I'd had an affair with a woman and they were horrified. My mother couldn't bear it. It was like hearing that her daughter was a Nazi. It made Mummy so unhappy, and not long afterwards she had a stroke,” she said.
"I sometimes think we should be more caring of the people that we divulge things to about ourselves. I wish I'd kept it to myself. My friend Ian McKellen, who I was at Cambridge with, profoundly disagrees with me.”
