Aherne passed away on Saturday at the age of 52 following a battle with cancer.
Advertisement
Carmel paid tribute to her former colleague, who she met over 20 years ago while working as a press officer at Granada TV.
She was a lovely, fearless person and she was a pioneer.
“It’s hard to pick a favourite memory – there are just so many”. She was really silly.
Caroline said she was “laughing and joking” with friends just days before her death, when the pair met for a coffee and a catch-up.
Caroline’s brother Patrick said in a statement: “My heart is broken as I loved her so much. Her death is a reminder how much she and her writing were, and still are, the exception”, he said.
The Liverpudlian actor told how he never saw Caroline looking unwell and that she never complained about her illness.
It was of course no secret that she’d been fighting cancer for years – since she was a baby in fact – but though apparently Caroline told her family back in May that her latest relapse was terminal, she didn’t share with them how fast her health was failing.
“She completely stood up for what she believed in creatively”.
“She used this next song on a very, very, very, very brilliant sit-com in England called The Royle Family”. I’m grateful. That’s how I want to remember her.
He said Aherne had a “joy about her” and that despite her hard times “prized laughter above all else”. She changed the landscape. The Royle Family is one of the greatest British comedies. It was just people sat watching TV in their living room. “What a wonderful talent she was”. “We’ve lost another one of our best”, he wrote.
Advertisement
The star, best known for the sitcom The Royle Family and for ageing up as the agony aunt Mrs Merton, had been diagnosed with lung cancer and had previously been treated for bladder and eye cancer, as well as fighting depression and drink problems. “And the thing is as you gain celebrity, more and more people present themselves to you as “I am the person you can trust”, and it becomes extremely confusing for an innocent person”.
