“I’ve lost both my mum and dad… there’s no home to go back to now, no one waiting when I return,” Sam West sobbed. 😢
The actor shared a deeply emotional account of his final years with Fawlty Towers legend Prunella Scales, who passed aged 93 after a long battle with dementia. From their last “proper conversation” filled with wit to the touching moment she still recognized Queen Camilla in her final year, his words reveal a story of love, humour, and heartbreak. 💐
👇 Full emotional story below 👇
In the hushed glow of a London podcast studio, actor Sam West’s voice cracked like fine porcelain under the weight of unspoken grief. “I’ve lost both my mum and dad… there’s no home to go back to now, no one waiting when I return,” he said, tears carving silent paths down his cheeks. The 58-year-old star of All Creatures Great and Small was speaking on Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast, an episode recorded just weeks before the death of his mother, the inimitable Prunella Scales, on October 27, 2025. At 93, the Fawlty Towers legend—beloved for her portrayal of the oblivious Sybil Fawlty—succumbed peacefully at her southwest London home after a 12-year battle with dementia. Her passing, less than a year after husband Timothy West’s in November 2024, has left Sam and brother Joseph adrift in a sea of memories, their family home now a vault of echoes rather than embraces.
Prunella’s death, announced by her sons with poignant simplicity—”Our darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday”—has ignited a torrent of tributes from across the entertainment world. John Cleese, her Fawlty Towers co-star, shared nostalgic snaps on X, captioning them: “Farewell to a true comic genius.” Yet it’s Sam’s raw revelations that pierce deepest, offering an intimate mosaic of a mother’s final years: wit flickering like a candle in fog, love enduring where words failed, and humor as the family’s defiant shield against sorrow.
The Last Proper Conversation: A Glimpse of the Woman She Was
Sam’s “proper conversation” with Prunella—defined as one rich with the sharp banter and literary allusions that defined her—halted abruptly two years ago, around 2023. “She could still chat, but it was fragments,” he recounted on the podcast, his voice a tender blend of ache and admiration. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2013 at age 80, Prunella’s decline was gradual but inexorable. Early signs emerged during Great Canal Journeys, the beloved Channel 4 series (2014-2019) where she and Timothy navigated Britain’s waterways—and later global routes—in a testament to their 61-year marriage. “They’d been boating for 30 years; it was their joy,” Sam reflected in a 2023 BBC interview, noting how dementia cast a subtle shadow over episodes, turning adventures into poignant vignettes of perseverance.
By her 90th birthday in 2022—a sunlit gathering at her London home—Prunella’s spark endured. Sam curated 6,500 messages from fans worldwide, a deluge of love she savored page by page. “It was a very happy day,” he beamed in the pre-recorded interview, evoking the scene: her younger son Joseph reciting a poem, laughter rippling like water under a narrowboat’s prow. “My brother did a beautiful poem. She read every card, beaming.” Yet beneath the joy lurked the thief: dementia’s erosion of self. “I think my mother didn’t love being herself,” Sam confided, a heartbreaking insight into Prunella’s lifelong chameleon-like artistry. “As soon as she couldn’t pretend to be somebody else, she got rather upset.” For an actress whose career spanned nearly 70 years—from Mapp and Lucia to Doctor Who—impersonation was armor; its loss, a naked vulnerability.
Timothy’s death in 2024 amplified the isolation. The couple, married since 1963 after meeting on a theatre set, shared a ritual of reciting poetry in bed each night—a habit born of their shared passion for verse. In a 2024 Times interview, Prunella, then 92, confessed her fears with disarming candor: “I worry about Tim dying before me.” When he did, at 90, she endured with a stairlift-installed independence, sleeping upstairs in their cherished home. Sam described her final months as “comfortable, contented,” surrounded by caregivers who became family. She watched Fawlty Towers the day before her passing—a fitting coda to Sybil’s eternal obliviousness.
A Royal Recognition: Laughter in the Twilight
Amid the fog, glimmers of recognition pierced through. Last year, at a Rye, East Sussex gathering in E.F. Benson’s former home—the author of Mapp and Lucia, which Prunella had adapted—Queen Camilla arrived unannounced. “What was interesting was that your mother seemed to recognise Queen Camilla,” Brandreth recalled on the podcast, painting a scene of unexpected delight. “They kissed, had a happy chat. She laughed at the jokes—if you hadn’t known, you’d never guess.” Prunella, ever the queen of deadpan, responded with her signature wit, a moment Sam cherishes as “pure magic.” It was one of her last outings, a bridge between regal past and fragile present.
These anecdotes underscore Prunella’s grace: outings to church, where she heard her eight-year-old granddaughter sing at St James’s Piccadilly—the same venue as Timothy’s memorial; quiet evenings with round-the-clock care that preserved her dignity. “Somehow we have coped with it,” Sam told the BBC in 2023, post their diamond anniversary. “Pru doesn’t really think about it.” The family’s approach was laced with levity; Sam often teased, “How old do you think I am?” eliciting foggy guesses that dissolved into shared chuckles.
A Legacy of Love, Laughter, and Light in Darkness
Prunella’s life was a tapestry of triumphs: born Prunella Illingworth in 1932 to a cotton salesman father and actress mother, she graced stages from the Old Vic to television’s pantheon. Fawlty Towers (1975-1979) cemented her as a comic icon—Sybil’s airy detachment the perfect foil to Basil’s frenzy. But her real stardom shone in vulnerability: Great Canal Journeys humanized aging, dementia not as tragedy but as textured reality. “It was unusual to see older people on TV not as comedy or pathos,” Sam noted.
Her openness destigmatized dementia, inspiring figures like Corinne Mills of Alzheimer’s Society: “Prunella shone a light on the UK’s biggest killer.” Tributes flooded X: Kids for Kids, a charity she supported, mourned her “warmth, humour & kindness.” Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds recalled a 2023 event with Timothy and Sam—”fun, laughter and conversation.”
For Sam, inheritor of this dynasty—BAFTA-nominated for The Madness of King George, now Siegfried in All Creatures—the losses compound. Fatherless since 2024, now motherless, he navigates a world without “home.” Yet in Rosebud, recorded amid grief’s prelude, he honors them: Timothy’s gravelly wisdom, Prunella’s impish spark. “They were my north star,” he said, voice steadying.
Sam’s daughters, born 2014 and 2017, and step-sister Juliet carry the flame. As he told Hello!, “Very sad, but their love endures.” Prunella’s final days? “Surrounded by love”—a eulogy in three words. In losing his anchors, Sam West finds purpose: to recite their poetry, laugh at their jokes, and ensure no home is ever truly empty.
