John Altman pays tribute to his ‘on screen ma’ June Brown

EastEnders’ John Altman spoke to Good Morning Britain today about his on-screen ‘ma’, June Brown.

EastEnders performer John Altman has paid tribute to his on-screen mother, the legendary June Brown.

June died aged 95 at the weekend, and John, who played Nasty Nick in the soap spoke fondly of his relationship with the his on-screen mum Dot Cotton in the soap, and their time together on screen.

“[They were] treasured moments for me in my career, it was such a joy to work with her. She was older than me so she was more experienced – she’d guide me sometimes, say, ‘Slow down a bit on that, dear.’”

Nasty Nick was seen in the very first episode of EastEnders, ‘ma’ Dorothy Cotton arrived five months later. On-screen there was never any love shown to Dot by Nick – unless he was scheming – with plots including trying to poison her for life insurance at one point. Off-screen, however, the pair were great pals who continued to keep in touch with John noting he’d last seen her in March 2022.

“About a month ago. She was tired.  She’d slowed right down. I’d like to say, so much thanks and god bless her family who’ve been fantastic, rallying round her – they’ve taken great care of her. She didn’t have to go into a home or anything. She spent her last days in her lovely home in the Surrey Hills.”

June Brown and John Altman as Dot and Nick, EastEnders

He revealed June was a “real stickler” for the script being accurate, and the pair would spend hours going over the lines in her dressing room. In 2014 Nick faked his death, only to really die the following year, in a scene with June. On their final scenes together, he said:

“The last scene we did together was a very emotional affair and the floor manager said, ‘I swore I’d never shed a tear on the floor’, hardened production people but she said, ‘I did today’, after 35 years together, June and I, on and off,”

John also spoke about June’s generosity and her dedication to numerous charities.

“I used to tell her off – ‘June, you can’t do any more charities’. She said, ‘Oh dear, I have to’. She supported the donkeys, among many others, Children with Cancer, The Taverners – she just couldn’t say no.

“We’d walk to the canteen at the BBC and it would always take about half an hour because she’d stop along the way chatting to people. She was so kind. She used to say healing prayers, actually. She was quite a spiritual person – she definitely believed in a higher power, something more than we know, perhaps. We were a good team.”

June as Dot Branning

“She was a dear friend. Someone I could confide in, and probably my second mother, really. My real mother said she looked more like my mother than she did!”

“June had a great knowledge, like a taxi driver, because she had to drive herself from Surrey all the way up to Borehamwood and back for years, and one time I drove her home after a charity thing we’d done at the studio, and she said ‘Right dear, turn left there, turn right there, go down there, right round there’, – she was extraordinary. She knew all these back roads because she’d driven so much.”

Good Morning Britain, weekdays from 6am on ITV and the ITV Hub.