Jan 30 2006
By Lisa Hutchinson,
The Evening Chronicle
Big Brother's Michelle Bass told of her anguish today after her beloved grandmother died.
Seventy-nine-year-old Doris was the heart of the Bass family and her's was the home they all flocked to.
She died peacefully in her sleep at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary on Tuesday surrounded by her family.
Today Michelle, from Dinnington, who shot to fame after appearing on Big Brother in 2004, said: "We are all devastated. She was ill for some time but she just passed away peacefully.
"She is a big part of my life and she has now gone. I will be coming to the funeral on Tuesday and that will be an emotional occasion.
"She has always been very supportive towards me. She used to watch me all the time on Big Brother and she always liked to know what I was doing.
"She was a lovely person and she will be greatly missed by all of us," added Michelle, now living in Hertfordshire, and who after appearing in the BB house landed herself a six-figure contract as the presenter of Television X on The Fantasy Channel.
Doris was born in Ryton, near Gateshead. She was a member of the Land Army and worked on farms throughout the North East. She had six children; Cynthia, 57, Jeffery, 53, Peter, 49 and Les, 45. Her son Raymond died at 11 months in the early 1950s from pneumonia and Steven died at the age of 14 in 1968 from blood poisoning.
They were all raised in Dinnington, near Newcastle, where they stayed.
Divorced Doris also had seven grandchildren; Michelle, 25, Sarah, 20, Kevin, 39, Jeanette, 38, Raymond, 33, Lyndsey, 28, and Craig, 30. She had eight great grandchildren; Jessica, 13, Zoe,10, Isabel, nine, Bradley, four, Chelsea, nine, Laurie, eight, Tilly, five months and six-month-old Phoebe.
Son Peter, an electrical building inspector, said: "She needed an oxygen machine to breathe. She had been a smoker and stopped about 15 years ago, but by then the damage had been done. Mam got a chest infection and went into hospital. She was there for about a week when she died.
"She always had people around her. Her home was like a halfway house. Everyone would drop in all through the day, she always had visitors. In hospital she was given antibiotics and a stronger oxygen machine but she didn't make it. She died peacefully in her sleep. Cynthia, Les and Jeffery were there at her bedside when she died."
Brave Doris arranged her own funeral at St Matthew's Church in Dinnington Village, where she saw her grandchildren, including Michelle, christened. She will be cremated at the West Road Crematorium.
