'I don't think I've been a good mother': Veteran Eastenders actress June Brown opens her heart on Piers Morgan's Life Stories

Actress June Brown has bared her soul to an audience of millions as part of Piers Morgan's Life Stories.
The actress, who has played Dot Cotton in EastEnders for 28 years, was a special guest on the ITV talk show, which will air on Friday evening.
The appearance coincides with the release of her autobiography: Before The Year Dot. 

Ups and downs: June Brown and Piers Morgan discuss her life and career for Life Stories

Wearing a cream suit and an embellished blazer, the 86 year-old screen star made a number of revelations - including one about her role as a mother.
June and second husband Bob Arnold had six children in seven years.
When Piers asked her if she was a good mother, she replied: 'No, I don’t think I was. I think I could’ve been. I wasn’t a natural mother. I love my children but it was a lot of work.'
Piers then asked June whether the sacrifice she made by choosing to work had been worth it.
June said: 'I don’t think I could have done anything else, quite honestly. I’d have been very depressed, very miserable,' said June. 'I was a bit selfish I suppose.'

Household name: The iconic actress, who has played Dot Cotton in EastEnders for nearly thirty years

June’s career has lasted more than 60 years. Before joining EastEnders, she had a stage career which started at The Old Vic- the place where she met her first husband, Johnny Garley.
Piers asked if it was love at first sight. June said: 'No, I just liked him. He had a big personality. He was very amusing, very funny and he was very light hearted in those days and he was just fun to be with, but I was involved with Donald who’d had schizophrenia and I had also been having an affair with someone else.' 
June married Johnny when she was 23 years old and felt she had found her soul mate, but things took a tragic turn after he became very low and killed himself.

Revelatory: June reveals how she juggled work as an actress with giving birth to six children in seven years

'I’d gone to Rosie (her sister) and I was really hoping to stay the night because he was not sleeping, wasn’t eating, he was talking all the time and I was exhausted. It was very nasty of me and I thought I must have a night’s sleep. I bought half a bottle of wine and I said ‘Isn’t it lovely not having our husbands about, just to two of us,’ and then suddenly I got worried and I said ‘I’ve got to go back, I’ve got to go and see how Johnny is’.
'I went back and as soon as I pulled up outside the house I saw the curtains were drawn and I just knew something had happened. I ran up all the stairs to the top of the house and the room was full of gas and Johnny was in bed, undressed, everything neatly folded on the chairs and his watch and his money.
'I’d left him a shilling and an eight pence so that he could put a shilling in the gas,' explained June.  'He’d left his will and his note to me written on the back of his script.'
'I never lived in that flat again, but I went back for the rest of my things and the gas men were there checking the meter and the gas fire and said, ‘how much was left in the meter?  No don’t tell me,’ I said. Because I didn’t want to think that if I hadn’t left him the one and eight pence he wouldn’t have been able to do it, would he?'

Acclaimed: As a young actress, June was described by Yes Minister star Sir Nigel Hawthorne as "one of the most beautiful creatures"

In 2009 June stripped off as Miss January in Calendar Girls. She was the only one who insisted on being naked. The rest of the girls had flesh coloured underwear. 
Speaking of the experience, June said: 'I didn’t have any of that. I’d seen it before and the person was wrapped in a woollen blanket and I thought, ‘That’s awfully boring, I don’t want that’.  So I said, ‘I’m going to be a knitter in this.’ So I made my character into this person who knitted. So I had two squares one on each needle (to cover her chest) and Sophie, one of my daughters, got me a red velvet knitting bag which was covering the crotch.'
More recently, June also bonded with Lady Gaga when they appeared on The Graham Norton Show together last year.
'I’ve been invited to a private showing in a nightclub but I couldn’t go because I had to get ready for this,' she laughed.

Loose: June Brown pictured leaving the ITV studios following a guest appearance on the Loose Women

In character: June playing her famous BBC on-screen persona from Eastenders