Clegg and Co mourn the last of  Nora Batty, actress Kathy Staff

By Colin Fernandez for the Daily Mail

Updated:

Kathy Staff, who played the most famous battleaxe on television, Nora Batty, has died aged 80. The actress spent more than three decades playing the character in the BBC comedy Last Of The Summer Wine.

Nora Batty, with her perpetually wrinkled stockings and hair rollers, quickly became one of the best-loved characters after the show's creation in 1973.

She was notorious for chasing away her would-be suitor Compo with a broom whenever he got too amorous.

Kathy Staff

Veteran actress Kathy Staff as the nation's favourite battleaxe, Nora Batty

Mrs Staff's co-star Peter Sallis, who played Clegg in the series, led tributes to his 'irreplaceable' colleague, who died of a brain tumour on Saturday.

Enlarge   Kathy Staff

Actress Kathy seen in Crossroads seen in 1964

'She dominated anything that she was in,' he said. 'You could stop acting when Kathy was there because she was going to do it all for you.'

Mike Grady, who played Barry, said: 'She was blessed with a wonderful, quite formidable face, which I hope isn't disrespectful, but she knew it.

'And she had that wonderful resonant voice, which was quite intimidating. She was actually a very sweet woman.'

Born in July 1928 as Minnie Higginbottom, she initially used the stage name Katherine Grant. She worked in theatre until her marriage to maths teacher John Staff in 1951.

From then on she called herself Kathy Staff, and it was under this name that she first appeared in Last of The Summer Wine in 1973.

The show has run to 243 episodes and is screened in 26 countries.

Kathy Staff

Tough love: Kathy Staff as Nora Batty shooing away Clegg (Peter Sallis), Compo (Bill Owen) and Foggy (Brian Wilde)

A size 16 in real life, Mrs Staff had to wear layers of padding to play the generously proportioned Nora.

She also appeared in Emmerdale and Coronation Street, and with David Jason and Ronnie Barker in Open All Hours. She lived in Dukinfield, near Manchester – the village where she was born – and sang in her local church choir.

Last of the Summer Wine's producer Alan Bell said Mrs Staff often yearned to give Nora Batty a softer side.

'She would play a scene quite gently, and I'd say, "But Kathy, you've got to harden up, because that's who we all love – the hard, tough Nora Batty".'

Mrs Staff is survived by her husband and two daughters.

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