FIGHTING FOR CHANGE: 'I get mum guilt all the time'

EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy is championing working mums, and tells us about her own very, very hectic' home life

-  REBECCA JONES

Natalie Cassidy is one of the nation’s best-known soap stars, having graced our screens as Sonia Fowler on EastEnders for 30 years.

Aside from portraying the Walford icon on the BBC serial, which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, Natalie hosts her weekly Life With Nat and Off The Telly podcasts. Plus, she recently landed a job presenting a four-part consumer affairs show on Channel 4 called What’s The Big Deal? set to air this winter.

The actress, who is engaged to cameraman Marc Humphreys, has two daughters, Joanie, eight, and Eliza, 13. But how does it feel having a fully fledged teenager in the house? Eliza turns 14 at the end of September, and Natalie admits she often feels ‘mum guilt’ when she can’t be at home as much as she would like to due to her work commitments.

Like every mum, she understands that juggling work with looking after children can be tough.

“I get mum guilt all the time – 100%,” she says. “And I think that’s why we need to talk about it more. I don’t think you understand until you have children. People saying, ‘Don’t have children if you want a career’ is ridiculous. It’s an ignorant thing to say.

“We’re not living in the 1950s, Dad doesn’t go to work while Mum stays at home. But we don’t have the infrastructure to support families who need to work. The childcare right now just doesn’t work. So all of that needs to be looked at and changed.”

There’s never a dull moment in Natalie’s home – when the 41-year-old catches up with us, she admits that “everything’s very, very hectic” as her daughter Joanie and her pals are racing around the house.

The London-born star explains she and her fiancé are freelancers, so they “don’t have a set diary” like many families with a traditional Monday-to-Friday 9am-to-5pm working pattern.