Pauline stepped away from her TV career after being diagnosed with dementia
Jen Pharo and Abigail Neep
20:05, 30 Nov 2025
Birds of a Feather television programme starring Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson (Image: BBC)
Linda Robson was heartbroken when her sitcom sister was diagnosed with dementia. But the star is in regular contact with Pauline Quirke and has given an update about her progress.
The friends were just 10 years old when they met and went on to have a successful career together on both stage and screen.
Most famously, the pair played Sharon and Tracey in their hit sitcom Birds of A Feather, also starring Lesley Joseph as their neighbour Dorien.
Linda, 67, is now performing solo as Pauline’s dementia battle has forced her to retire from acting.
Despite Pauline’s decline since being diagnosed at age 61 in 2021, Linda remains close with her friend and the two met up alongside family and friends for a pub lunch.
“I love her so much,” Linda told The Mirror.
“Fifty-seven years we’ve been best friends. We were both 10 when we met at primary school and we’re still friends now.”
“We’re all still in touch and we were all still friends and it’s been really nice,” shares Linda.
“I went to see Pauline about a week and a half ago. Her son Charlie picked me up at the station.
“We went to the house and her daughter Emily was there, her granddaughters were there, her husband Steve was there too and it was just really, really nice.
“We went to a little local pub and then they put us in a little private room so it was just us in there. And we had a really nice lunch, all of us.”
Pauline still recognises Linda and keeps her laughing, the pair shared jokes and reminisced about their time on Birds Of A Feather and in pantomimes.
Linda Robson on the red carpet at the Daily Mirror 2024 Pride of Britain Awards (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)
“She was giggling and happy. She’s being really well looked after and she did recognise me, which I was really pleased with as well,” said Linda.
“She’s doing well,” she added.
Pauline’s son Charlie previously starred alongside his mum and Linda in ITV’s Birds Of A Feather reboot as Tracey’s son Travis Stubs
Now he is playing an active role in his mum’s care and this months plans to embark on a five-day trek to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK in honour of Pauline.
If her schedule will allow for it, Linda hopes she will be able to join Charlie on his mission for some of the way.
“I’m hoping I’ll be able to go on the march,” says Linda. “Hopefully I’ll see Pauline again before Christmas.”
During the Christmas period, Linda is playing Councillor Chigwell in Aladdin at the Orchard West theatre in Dartford, East London.
Linda will perform in two shows a day, with just Christmas day off, but even that busy schedule can’t match the workload she shared with Pauline.
“The first one that me and Pauline did at the Hackney Empire, we did three shows a day,” says Linda. “That was a killer.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER Pictured: Dorien Green (played by Lesley Joseph), Sharon Theodopolopodos (played by Pauline Quirke), Tracey Stubbs (played by Linda Robson)(Image: ITV)
“We’d leave home at eight o’clock in the morning, we’d have a 10 o’clock show, a two o’clock show, and a seven o’clock show. And it was exhausting.
“Pauline went to me, ‘I’m never doing panto again.’ But she did.”
Linda says she’s staying relaxed in her customised Sketchers shoes to keep her feet comfy and will turn to banter if all else fails when trying to remember her lines.
“I’m just going to enjoy it,” says Linda.
“If I forget my lines, I’ll just say, ‘I haven’t got a clue what I was supposed to say here!’ The audience love it then!”
At 67-years-old, Linda is not feeling any desire to retire anytime soon.
“I don’t want to retire unless they get fed up with me and don’t ask me to do any more,” she says. “But hopefully I don’t retire. I’d like to work forever.”
The performer made her debut on ITV daytime series Loose Women back in 2003 and has been a regular for the last nine years since joining the panel in 2016.
Linda has fears for her future on the show after ITV made cuts. The programme will now air just 30 episodes a year instead of the now 52 from 2026.
“It’s hopefully back in January, if we’ve still got jobs,” says Linda.
“We have to wait and find out. My first job was in a fish and chip shop so I might have to go back to the fish and chip shop!”
She’s currently obsessed with I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! , which she began watching to support her friend, actor and Spandau Ballet star Martin Kemp.
“He’s a really nice man,” says Linda. “I love it that he’s so family oriented as well. He loves his [wife] Shirlie, he loves his kids.
Linda Robson in the jungle in 2012(Image: ITV)
“I’ve met him loads and loads of times over the years and Gary as well, his brother, but more Martin because Martin was in about three episodes of Birds Of A Feather , and his character had sex with Lesley’s character Dorien in the back of a hearse!”
Linda appeared on the ITV show herself back in 2012, where she managed to get news from the outside world via the spin-off show, Extra Camp’s, with Joe Swash.
Linda is friends with Joe’s mum and has known the actor and presenter since he was a child.
“Joe lost his virginity at mine,” giggles Linda. “I’m best friends with his mum, Kiffy.
“We had a big Georgian house and we had a party and Joe locked himself in the bathroom and all the kids were hammering on the door! We’re all very close.”
When Linda was in the jungle, Joe would shout down to the mum-of-three which kept getting him told off.
“He’d shout down things to me,” shares Linda. “He’d go, ‘Lind! The kids have arrived!’
“He kept getting into trouble because he wasn’t supposed to do that, but I just wanted to know that the kids were safe.”
Linda has another ambition that she hopes to achieve after the panto is all done and dusted.
“I would like to do Gogglebox with Lesley,” says Linda. “We’d be really good together because we know each other so well.”
