Bill Treacher, better known as Eastenders Arthur Fowler has revealed all about his last few hellish years on the BBC soap.

Bill, who is returning to our screens this week in Casualty, told The Mirror newspaper:

“EastEnders is a great big machine. You can’t stop it and it is so hard to get off.

“It’s all right for some people but I was really struggling to cope. The pressure was always on me. I didn’t have a life and I knew I was going to end up in hospital. I was having migraines five times a day.

“Sometimes I would be playing a scene with an actor and I couldn’t see his face because my sight would go from the migraine.”

He added: “I was in a bad way and I couldn’t carry on like that. One day I took my dog for a walk and thought this is bloody silly. When I got back I said to my wife ‘Do you mind if I pack up my job?’ She said ‘You have been there for 11 years, it’s time to get out’.”

“I put my notice in November 1994 and I didn’t actually leave until November 1995,” he explains. “They just wouldn’t accept my resignation. They kept saying don’t and I said, Sorry I can’t do it any more’.

“Then someone asked me to present the Ulster Orchestra in concert. I only accepted so I could turn round to the BBC and tell them I had another engagement. I didn’t want to lie.

“They then said they wanted me to do another Christmas storyline. And I said no, I simply can’t.”