Celia Imrie says treatment for anorexia as a teenager was ‘horrible time’

Celia Imrie has described her treatment for an eating disorder under controversial psychiatrist William Sargant as a “horrible time”.

The Celebrity Traitors star, 74, developed anorexia during her early teens after she failed to get accepted at the Royal Ballet School.

She was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital in Lambeth where she received treatment from Sargant.

The psychiatrist was the subject of the book The Sleep Room: A Very British Medical Scandal by Jon Stock, which detailed his use of electroconvulsive therapy on patients, along with antipsychotic and sedative drugs.

Imrie said: ‘I do remember waking up one day and thinking: ‘I have to get myself out of here’’ (Ian West/PA)

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Remembering her treatment, Imrie told Saga magazine: “I don’t know to this day whether I had a spell in The Sleep Room or not, but I was in that ward and I remember the smell of the room.

“The smell of sleep. I can’t describe it. I mean, it was a horrible time.

“I do remember waking up one day and thinking: ‘I have to get myself out of here.’”

Imrie said at 14, a nurse challenged her by saying she was taking the bed of a “really sick child”, which motivated her to get better.

She said: “That was the best thing she could have said to me. What she said was a trigger. No, I hate using that word. It was a firework.”

Imrie also recalled the sexism she faced as a young actress in the 1970s, recalling an inappropriate remark from a male colleague who saw her wearing a T-shirt bearing the words The Best.

She said: “He gaped at my chest, licked his lips and said loudly: ‘Those are the best.’”

Imrie said a nurse challenged her by saying she was taking the bed of a ‘really sick child’, which motivated her to get better (Ian West/PA)

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Imrie also discussed how she no longer flies after suffering two pulmonary embolisms, a sudden and dangerous blockage in a blood vessel in the lungs.

It left her unable to work for a time and she also struggled with her mental health until a trip to France changed things for the better.

She said: “I liken my life to a game of snakes and ladders. It’s wonderful to go up the ladders, but there are snakes around the place and they come upon you sometimes when you’re not looking.

“I was on a snake at the time… Churchill used to call it the black dog.

“The illness did lay me flat for a bit. Your body does have an aftershock. It’s quite hard to explain, but I know I was on the floor. And yes, the paradise of Nice did save my life actually.’

“I went out for a baguette and came back with an apartment.

“I do believe that with these sort of things, you are the one who can get yourself out of it. With the help of the beauty of Nice, I picked myself up. It gave me that twist to get myself up again.”