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Coronation Street’s Bill Roache reveals car crash cost him a goodbye with dying daughter Vanya

The actor plays Ken Barlow in the ITV soap

Coronation Street star Bill Roache has told of his heartbreak after a car crash stopped him from seeing his late daughter before she died.

The Ken Barlow actor lost daughter Vanya, 50, earlier this year when she succumbed to liver disease after a three-year battle.

Is William Roache still in Coronation Stree
The actor has revealed his heartache at not being able to say goodbye to Vanya (Credit: ITV))

But now he has told of the devastation he felt when he missed the chance to give her one last hug.

Bill rushed from the Corrie set in Manchester to Chichester where Vanya was in hospital after receiving a message to say she didn’t have long left.

However with the snowy conditions, the actor and his son Will were involved in a terrifying car crash that meant they missed the chance to say goodbye for a final time.

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He told The Sunday Mirror: “By the time I got to her it was too late.

“The pain of losing a child is unbearable.”

He and son Will had been driving to Chichester, just 15 minutes away from Vanya, when the sat-nav took them down a curved country lane.

Bill Roache's late daughter Vanya
Bill Roache’s late daughter Vanya (Credit: Twitter)

But with the icy conditions, the car continued forward hitting a sign in the process before going over a traffic island and crashing into a hedge.

With the recovery services unable to attend for five hours, Bill missed his opportunity to give his daughter one final hug.

He said: “To not be able to say goodbye to Vanya was awful.

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“But your children going before you is horrendous.”

Bill also lost his daughter Edwina when she was just 18 months old, and later lost his wife Sarah from an undiagnosed heart condition while they were mid-conversation.

He is the sole remaining original actor in Coronation Street and the longest serving actor on television in history.

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