Kay Mellor’s art imitated her life after she built an extraordinary career from the humblest of beginnings.
The Band of Gold creator’s gritty and often hilariously funny northern dramas mirrored her own extraordinary life, which began in poverty in Leeds.
Born on May 11 1951, her father George ran off when she was young and left her Jewish mother Dinah to bring up Kay and her two brothers.
Kay had her first daughter Yvonne aged 16, and married the little girl’s father, Anthony, then 17, and the couple enjoyed more than 50 years of marriage until her ‘sudden and untimely’ death on Sunday.