Generally considered to be one of the unsung talents of comic acting, Pat Coombs was a popular British actress who became a master of both radio and screen during an illustrious career which spanned nearly half a century and only ended with her death on 25 May 2002, aged 75.

She starred alongside such comedy greats as June Whitfield, Dick Emery and Bob Monkhouse, a true measure of her remarkable comic talent which helped bring to life a multiplicity of parts on radio, television and film.

Her most famous roles on screen undoubtably came in ‘The Dick Emery Show’, ‘You’re Only Young Twice’ and some of the best loved ‘Carry On’ films.

Despite suffering from emphysema during later life, she nevertheless continued to work right up until her death. Linda Edwards, director of the National Osteoporosis Society of which Ms Coombs was a patron, recalled how the actress was “always making a joke,” in spite of her pain and called the £100,000 which she helped to research “the best single appeal result we’d ever had.”

One of three children, Patricia Doreen Coombs was born on 27 August 1926 at Camberwell, South London. She was educated at Beckenham’s County School for Girls during her youth and, despite her initial ambitions to pursue a career on the stage, she spent three years as a kindergarten teacher after leaving school.

It was her next door neighbour Vivien Merchant, then attending a course with a drama tutor and later to become Harold Pinter’s wife, who convinced the young Ms Coombs to accompany her to classes. There, she excelled and won a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

After graduating, she spent some time teaching at the Academy before finally finding work in repertory at Scunthorpe. This then led to opportunities in radio, specifically comedy, which saw Ms Coombs appear in the shows ‘Hello Playmates’ and Charlie Chester’s ‘A Proper Charlie’.

Her television break came when she appeared alongside Tony Hancock in 1957’s ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ and Dick Emery, the popular comedian, invited her to join ‘The Dick Emery Show’ as a regular performer.

A series of hit sitcoms followed, notably ‘Wild Wild Women’ alongside Barbara Windsor, ‘Beggar My Neighbour’ and her first of two partnerships with Peggy Mount in the 1971 ITV series ‘Lollipop Loves Mr Mole’.

Meanwhile, the 1960s and 70s also saw her light up cinema screens with appearances in two ‘Carry On’ films, while ‘On the Buses’ and ‘Ooh, You Are Awful’ further cemented her reputation as a comic actress.

In 1989 she appeared in ‘Eastenders’ for a year as an attempt by producers to inject some much-needed comedy into the popular soap. Axed in 1990, she then spent much of the 1990s making guest appearances in shows such as ‘Birds of a Feather’ and ‘Boon’, as well a regular spot on Saturday-night TV favourite ‘Noel’s House Party’.

She had just completed a role in Radio Four’s ‘Like They’ve Never Been Gone’, alongside June Whitfield, when she died from complications arising from emphysema on 25 May 2002, aged 75.

Ms Coombs lived much of her later life in Denville Hall actors’ home, a north west London nursing home to which she had moved in order to be closer to friend and fellow actress Peggy Mount.

A heavy smoker all her life, she was diagnosed with osteoporosis in 1995 and worked hard to promote the work of the National Osteoporosis Society, becoming a patron of the charity three years later in 1998.

She remained unmarried and once remarked, “I’ve never been wildly ambitious; I think if I’d been married, my career would have gone out of the window.”

She once played seven different roles in a radio play entitled ‘Atomic Duck’.