Former EastEnders star Lindsey Coulson recently made a return to our screens as Waterloo Road’s new head teacher.
The actress joined the cast as Dame Stella Drake for the new series of the hit BBC school drama.
To millions of EastEnders fans, however, Lindsey is best known for her role as Carol Jackson, who she originally played from 1993 to 1997 before returning for a guest appearance in 1999 and another five-year stint from 2010.
The soap also has a deeply personal connection to Lindsey, as it is through her former co-star Patsy Palmer that now-husband Harry Harris.
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Harry is the real-life brother of Patsy, who is known for her role as Lindsey’s on-screen daughter Bianca Jackson.
Lindsey and Harry married in 2002 and they have a daughter called Grace together. Lindsey also has a daughter from her previous marriage to showbiz agent Philip Chard.
Speaking to Good Housekeeping about her marriage to Harry in 2020, Lindsey said: ‘I think I love him more now than I did when I met him – just in terms of having grown really well together.
‘It’s not hard work, although relationships can be. I was lucky enough to meet somebody who’s on the same page as me.’
Revealing the secret to their happy marriage, Lindsey said: ‘Conversation. I’m lucky in that he’s a psychotherapist and we’re interested in the same things – and we’re great talkers.’
Lindsey recently ruled out the possibility of returning to EastEnders as Carol, telling Metro: ‘In my head, Carol Jackson is somewhere, she’s done an Open University degree, she’s reading books on a beach with a really lovely man in her life and she doesn’t really want to come back to that Square at all because she’d end up working in the caff or the pub.
‘I like that she’s gone off into the wherever and in my head she’s really grown as a person and is good.’
When Carol departed Albert Square, she had separated from partner David Wicks (Michael French), and was seen riding off into the sunset on a motorbike.
The character has been notably ‘missing’ during a number of key stories for her family over the last year, including her daughter Sonia Fowler’s (Natalie Cassidy) wrongful imprisonment for the murder of Debbie Colwell.
Natalie recently announced she will be leaving the role of Sonia after 32 years in the coming weeks, which Lindsey reacted to during an appearance on This Morning.
She said: ‘I’ve known her since she was 10, and she was like that – she was a grown-up then. I love Natalie.’
Waterloo Road airs Tuesdays at 9pm on BBC One or stream the whole series now on BBC iPlayer.
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