I Couldn't Even Be With My Eddie In His Final Moments

Anguish of comedy legend’s widow banned from his bedside as he died

- Patrick Hill

The widow of coronavirus victim Eddie Large has told of her agony at being banned from the star’s bedside as he died.

Tearful Patsy McGinnis begged nurses to let her see the comedy legend but had to stay away because of hospital lockdown restrictions.

“I was saying, ‘Please… please’, but they said they couldn’t let anyone in,” said Patsy, 76. “It broke my heart I couldn't be with him those last days.”

She doesn’t even know if she’ll be allowed to see 78-year-old Eddie’s body to say a final goodbye – and reveals her anguish that his double-act sidekick Syd Little will miss his lifelong friend’s funeral because of Government rules that only close family members can attend.

“Syd is heartbroken,” she said. “He and Eddie were teenage friends and worked together from 1963.

“He’s essentially family and deserves to be there.”

Patsy’s final conversation with her husband of 37 years was over the phone only hours before his death early on Thursday morning – four days after he tested positive for COVID-19 which he is believed to have picked up in hospital.

“The last words I said to him were, ‘Darling I love you, we all miss you so much and really want you to be able to come home’,” she said.

“He wasn’t feeling good and said, ‘I’m going to have to go, darling’. Then he said, ‘I love you’, put the phone down and that was it. At 4 am the hospital rang to tell us he had passed away.

“We haven’t been able to see Eddie’s body since and I’m not sure if we’ l l be allowed to.” Patsy, a former singer, and dancer, met Glasgow-born Eddie when they appeared in Aladdin in Liver pool together in 1977.