One month after beloved Gogglebox star Emmie Silbery passed away, daughter Kerry Milligan has opened up about her mother’s death.
In a piece written for the Daily Telegraph, Kerry described their bond from the very start.
The mother-daughter duo have always had a strong bond, with Kerry recalling how she used to skip school so she could stay home and watch midday movies with her mother.
When Emmie was 50, her husband left her and the pair got even closer.
“She had such an open and cheeky attitude that everyone thought we were sisters, especially on the beach in our bikinis,” she wrote.
Kerry, now 67, added that Emmie had been by her side through life’s highs and lows, from the birth of her daughter to a miscarriage and a divorce.
Her mother moved in with her when she turned 87.
“Mum and I had an arrangement that if either of us brought a fancy man home that we would leave out a note to that effect,” she wrote.
The duo enjoyed their time together and were well-loved on Gogglebox, which they appeared alongside Isabelle, but three years ago, Kerry noted that she started noticing changes in Emmie, and not long after she needed to move to a facility with 24/7 care.
“It was two and a half years between diagnosis and her death but in the end it was her tired old heart that gave up,” she said.
“The night she died we lay with her and listened to her favourite Dolly Parton songs.”
Emmie passed away aged 96 in July, with granddaughter Isabelle releasing a statement alongside a family portrait.
“Our Emmie, waited for me to come home for one last snuggle. Her last words ‘I’m ready to hang up now’,” she wrote at the time.
“She was 96, an orphan, a nurse, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, the oldest woman on TV, a great grandmother, an author and so much more. Thank you for loving her as much as we did and will forever. Have a big rest now — you deserve it.”
The Silbery family first appeared on Gogglebox in 2015, and in 2022 it was announced that Emmie would no longer appear on the show following her dementia diagnosis.
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