Miriam Margoyles has revealed she struggles to walk and admits she regrets not making major changes to her life following surgery last year.
The 83-year-old actress underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement surgery to avoid more invasive open-heart surgery, but admitted she still struggles with her health.
The Harry Potter actress also revealed that she is now registered as disabled and may end up using a wheelchair due to a back problem.
Miriam explained that spinal stenosis occurs when the space around the spinal cord becomes too narrow and the nerves become pinched, making it difficult for her to walk and requiring her to use a wheelchair.
In an interview with Closer, the star said: ‘I can’t walk very well and I’m registered as disabled, so I use all sorts of aids. I have two sticks and a walking frame and they’re so boring, but I’ve only got a mobility scooter, which is really fun.’
Miriam Margoyles has revealed she now struggles to walk and admitted she regrets not making serious changes to her life after undergoing surgery last year
The Harry Potter actress also revealed that she is now registered as disabled and may end up using a wheelchair due to a back condition that could restrict her to a wheelchair.
Miriam’s main source of income is her television work and includes acting and presenting – including the lead role of Mother Mildred in Call the Midwife (pictured)
But Miriam also admitted that she regrets not making major lifestyle changes to improve her health.
She said she wished she could have overcome her weight and that it was her defeat that she hadn’t.
During a performance at the Podcast How To Fail In September, the actress and presenter admitted that she had not reached her eighth.
She said, ‘I’m a mass of blubber. I’m fat. And being fat and 82 is really sad.’
She has also since expressed fears as she gets older and worries that she will no longer be able to pay the caregivers who look after her as her health deteriorates.
She told Radio Times: ‘I worry that I won’t have enough money for carers if I end up paralysed, or whatever happens to me.’
She added that she is now focusing on saving to support herself and her partner and is working on a new season of her hit series.
Miriam, who has been with her partner Heather since 1968, lives in Clapham, south-west London.
Miriam also makes videos for fans on Cameo, where she charges £100 for a special greeting clip, and estimates it’s earned her a whopping £365,000 since 2020 (pictured on Cameo)
The actress is set to direct a new series of BBC Two’s Miriam Margolyes: A New Australian Adventure, which airs this Friday.
Miriam’s main source of income is her television work, which includes acting and presenting.
She plays Mother Mildred in Call the Midwife, has worked on numerous documentaries and is also a regular narrator on talk shows. For example, she shares the Graham Norton couch with musician will.i.am and the late Friends star Matthew Perry.
She also has a lucrative sideline making videos for fans on the Cameo website, where she charges £100 for a special greeting clip of herself. She estimates it has earned her a whopping £365,000 since 2020.
Last year she earned £250,000 for her memoir Oh Miriam!
Although she was initially reluctant to be filmed, she has now become a role model for the elderly thanks to her adventurous television show.
She said: ‘When I started failing physically, I remember saying to directors and producers, please don’t make me climb out of a car or climb up stairs on my hands and knees. I didn’t want people to see that because I was so embarrassed to make myself look so pathetic.’
“But then I met a lot of people who said I gave them the courage to do things they never thought they could do. So I’m really happy about that.”