Coral Atkins obituary
by Anthony Hayward from on (#26ASA)
Actor whose career took second place to her vocation to help disturbed children
The actor Coral Atkins, who has died aged 80, found fame on television in the 1970s in A Family at War, which ran for 52 episodes and attracted audiences of more than 20 million. Her character, Sheila Ashton, was the downtrodden and neglected wife of a womanising RAF sergeant, David (played by Colin Campbell), and a heroine of the semi-autobiographical series created by John Finch.
The ITV drama (1970-72) followed a lower-middle-class Liverpool family from 1938 to 1945, their emotional conflicts running parallel to the greater events taking place across Europe and then the world. Atkins found herself showered with flowers, receiving stacks of fan mail and forever being stopped in the streets by people shouting out to "our Sheila".
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