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Laura Sadler, 1980 - 2003

Record released on 2003-06-20 at 6:37 p.m.

Yesterday, young actress Laura Sadler died. At the start of the week when I first read on the news online about what had happened I really couldn't believe it. Right from the outset things did not look good for her but I kept hoping that she would be alright. When you watch someone full of life on the television screen in glorious technicolour, it's so hard to believe that she's anything but fit and well.

I think most people know her from Holby City but as I've mentioned my knowledge of her stems way back to 1999 when she appeared in Belfry Witches. I only even watched it because of the Jan Harvey connection - as did a handful of other Bugs fans. But some of us surprisingly liked it. I've always said that kids programmes are better than 'proper' telly and this was one such show.

At the time I'd just come out of a very difficult summer during which a lot of things in my life had changed. I'd lost friends, gained others and I'd also been incredibly depressed. As September dawned and the trials of the summer began to fade, the television schedules were bursting with new programmes. I spotted a tiny picture of Jan Harvey in a giant witch's hat at the side of a page in the Radio Times and ran around the house for hours screaming, "AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! Jan's in a kid's programme!" - and of course in the days that followed a couple of other members of the online Bugs community and I made a pact to watch it. So the following week I sat down with too much eagerness and I enjoyed it very much. Far too much for a programme with Jan in it!

I remember, there was a clip in the titles of an unspeakably terrifying bubble bath scene with Jan in and week after week it was the age-old terror of, will it be this week that the awful scene will be shown in full. Torturously it was the very last episode that it was in, just to stretch out the fear!

But there was another aspect of the programme which played an important part in my life at the time. When I was 19 I was still very much in the closet. There were only 4 people who knew about my sexuality, and of those none were particularly accepting and only one person would allow me to talk about girls. She was a friend I had online, and she used to tease me about whoever I happened to like at the time. After one episode of Belfry Witches she gave me a grilling about whether or not I liked anyone in it and Laura Sadler came up in conversation. My friend was convinced I only liked girls with curly hair and declared, "Curly! I Knew it!" so I had to put her right and inform her that I fancied both young witches equally.

But that stuck in my mind because it was one of so very few conversations I ever had about women before I met Y. She was one of so few girls that I ever mentioned to anyone. That's quite an honour, I suppose, with all that's happened since.

After the 2 series that Belfry Witches ran for, I didn't see her in anything else until Holby City. I only started to watch Holby City again because I discovered that she'd gone into it. At the time, my rotten experiences with hospitals had completely turned me away from hospital dramas and again it shows how big a place she had in my affections that I actually started to watch it regularly just to see her. Every time she came on the screen I'd stop typing or reading or whatever I was doing to watch her. Her smile lit up any scene she was a part of.

And now she's gone. It's strange, but thinking about her death in relation to 'the girl from Holby City' doesn't really register. but picturing her in her witch's costume as Skirty Marm, her young talent bringing the character to life, that's where I feel so incredibly, terribly sad. Picturing the titles to the programme and remembering me sitting down eagerly in front of it like an overgrown kid, waiting for the show to begin, and realising she's gone just feels unreal.

It makes it so tragic because she was so young. She said her life was perfect in her last ever interview, according to the news last night. I suppose that's the only small silver lining - that she had gone while she was happy.

I can't even begin to imagine what her family have gone through this week, or what they will go through over the coming months, but my thouhts are with them just as they have been since Monday.

Last night my mum gently told me that she had died, and I cried. I couldn't help it. I was shocked and terribly upset, even though it had seemed certain for days. I am very glad that Y was here last night to hold me while I told him about Belfry Witches, and about how I had fallen for her years ago.

Eerily, last night, a bat hovered outside my window. We've had bats fly across before but never make such a direct attempt for attention. usually they just fly straight overhead and ignore the houses. I thought it was a giant moth at first until I realised it was too big - and too dark - to be that. It edged away until it was out of view. It struck me as ironic and strange since only minutes earlier I'd been recalling Belfry Witches, and the alleged bat-eating that went on in it. It was a strangely timed event.

I raised a glass of red wine to the bat later that night. But I was really raising it to her.

Rest in peace, Laura Sadler.

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