Bouquet for Babs

A quarter of a century after she made her last feature film - playing The Pet Shop Boys' landlady in 1987's It Couldn't Happen Here - Barbara Windsor MBE is to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bradford International Film Festival.

Windsor, who will be 75 later this year, made her uncredited film debut as a schoolgirl in The Belles of St Trinians in 1954, went on to co-star in nine Carry On comedies as well as many of the TV spin-offs and comedy specials.

Better known, latterly, as a stalwart of BBC TV's EastEnders (she's authentic in her own right), Windsor also appeared in On the Fiddle, Sparrows Can't Sing and A Study in Terror.

She will receive her award in Bradford on April 20, a day after the festival opens with the UK Premiere of Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress.

The festival runs until April and showcases 27 new films including the period cross-dressing drama Albert Nobbs and In Love with Alma Cogan, co-starring Roger Lloyd Pack, John Hurt and Niamh Cusack.