Thelma Barlow is perhaps the very epitome of national treasure status - her popularity spanning generations in some of Britain’s best-loved shows.

But the cherished actress now prefers to keep a lower profile, enjoying semi-retirement in Kent after moving to the county eight years ago.

“I absolutely love it here,” she says. “My heart is still in the Yorkshire Dales – my home county – but I just love Faversham. It's the friendliest, most community-minded town I've ever been to.”

And it is in the market town she has settled. She celebrated her 95th birthday in the summer and remains thoroughly engaging company - bright and sharp.

She moved to the town from Swanage in Dorset, having decided to head south after leaving the role that made her a household name.

Because for more than 25 years, she portrayed one of Corrie’s best-known characters - Mavis Wilton, the moralising half of a double-act alongside Rita Sullivan at The Kabin’s newsagents. She was a mainstay when the show was reaching more than 20 million viewers every week.

Even if you didn’t watch the long-running soap, her character infiltrated wider culture courtesy of the comedy duo Les Dennis (yes, that one) and Dustin Gee.

Dennis’s ‘I don’t really know’ mimic infiltrated living rooms and playgrounds everywhere in the 1980s. (“I met Les, and he was lovely,” Thelma says).

Her character left Weatherfield as she fast approached 70. It was, she says, the right time.

“I'd done 15 years of theatre before Coronation Street,” she explains, “and I never thought I'd be in something so long, but it became interesting because you had to try and work out how to respond to each character. A new one would be written in and you'd have to think of what my character would have thought of them.

“[Corrie] was very convenient because it gave me some solid work. The contract was only a year at a time so you were never really secure. You had to keep your fingers crossed.

“And of course, you make such good friends - it is very much like family. You have that security and support.”

Thelma spent a number of years sharing a house with co-star Helen Worth, who portrayed Gail Platt, while she also remains in contact with the likes of Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts) and Barbara Knox, who played Rita.

In 1991, the cast joined her on stage after she was surprised on This Is Your Life when Michael Aspel appeared unexpectedly in The Kabin.

“That was such a shock - I had no idea,” Thelma smiles.

“Eventually,” she says, “I thought if I'm ever going to do anything else then I'm going to have to leave. The producer at the time said they couldn't break up The Kabin so convinced me to stay for a year.”

“The next year came and my accountant said just do one more,” she smirks.

But when she finally left, in 1998, retirement - as most assumed - was not for her.

She then went on to enjoy fame in a very different role, as Dolly Bellfield in Victoria Wood’s hit BBC sitcom Dinnerladies at the turn of the century - a gloriously scripted show which allowed her to build on her comedy chops.

“Victoria knew I was leaving Coronation Street and approached me,” she says. “I played a very different character, but given it was Victoria, it couldn't really fail.

“You knew how lucky you were with the lines that she gave you. I wouldn't say she was a hard taskmaster, but we all wanted to be good for her. It was her first sitcom and we took on a mantle of responsibility to not let her down in any way as we all admired her so much.

“We were mostly very nervous about it.

“If there was ever an issue with the script, she'd ask to be bought some egg and chips from the canteen and she'd rewrite it. We'd go and have lunch and by the time we'd got back she'd have done it - and always it would be better.

“She crammed so much into her life - she'd often bring a nice cake in to rehearsal she'd made that morning. She was a remarkable person - blessed, but not for long enough.”

Victoria Wood died in April 2016 from cancer. She was 62.

But as the years passed for Thelma, the jobs kept flowing in.

She’s had roles in Doctor Who (during David Tennant’s first stint as the Timelord), and that essential on every British actor’s CV - a spot in long-running drama series Midsomer Murders during John Nettles’ stint as DCI Barnaby.

There were many more too - think Agatha Christie’s Marple, Doc Martin, Doctors and The Royal. Not to mention regular forays into her first love - theatre.

“I thought if I didn't get anything after leaving the Street, I've had a good run, but I did radio, TV, film and theatre. It was the right thing to do,” she adds.

Yet, despite her age, remarkably, earlier this year she returned in front of the camera for the short film Sleepless in Settle - a heartwarming tale of the relationship between a son and mother. Penned and directed by Judy Flynn (you’d recognise her from the likes of the Brittas Empire and a couple of episodes of Dinnerladies) and co-starring Graham Turner, it’s received warm reviews, if not a wide release. It was shot entirely in Rye, just over the Kent/East Sussex border.

“Most things we see about old folk they're at each other's throats,” she reflects, “or how the older person becomes a burden. But this one is really happy. It has some conflict, but it does make you think about your own relationships.”

The purpose of Thelma’s move to Faversham was to be near her son, who lives some 10 minutes away.

He’s a Master of Wine and works at specialist wine shops in Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells. Her other son works on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, taking people fishing during the summer and creating handmade rods in the winter.

“If I've achieved anything in bringing up my children,” Thelma says, “it’s to let them choose and not pressurise them into anything. They both are absorbed by their chosen careers.”

Perhaps unsurprinsgly, her trips to Lewis are now somewhat limited.

Born in 1929 “at the height of the Depression” in North Riding, her father died just weeks before she was born, from pneumonia, leaving her to be raised by her mother and grandmother.

“They somehow managed on so little,” she says. “It was always a case of just keeping yourself above water.

“After my sister married and moved away, I was left living with my mum. She was Victorian so her expectations were that her last daughter would have the widowed parent to live with them. She thought I was very bad to be moving away.

“I went to London and was doing typing as a temp and a year later got a job in a theatre.”

It was the start of a career she had never expected to follow or that would elevate her to one of Britain’s best-known faces.

Now, though, her life is somewhat more sedate, and she’s enjoyed getting to know her adopted county.

She explains: “I do like to go to Margate to visit the gallery. I like to go to Seasalter - the sunsets there are beautiful and it's a nice deserted beach and I have friends who live nearby.

“There's some lovely countryside here. I like Canterbury and it's wonderful just wandering around. Even the street names - like Beer Cart Lane - are so telling of the history of it.”

So can we expect to see her on our screens again? Or perhaps even returning to Corrie? The answer to the latter is a pretty adamant ‘no’. The former is also far from a given.

“I just have a fear of going into big studios - every minute is thousands of pounds for them and I would hate to let them down; get it wrong, or die, or something,” she says.

“That's the difficulty. I can't see anyone putting money into something with a 95-year-old. I'm not a good bet.”

So for now she’s continuing to enjoy her retirement, keeping, as she says, a “low profile” in the town.

Not that she always escapes being recognised.

“I’ve never really enjoyed fame,” she says, “but you have to learn to cope with it. You have to understand it means something to them to meet you. It still happens, but not as much. I’ve never thought of myself as something special.

“I remember someone once thrust their bald head at me and said ‘ere, write your name on that'. It used to make me cringe writing on flesh.”

Kent may be a long way from her birthplace, but she’s embraced it to her heart.

“Kent is a beautiful county,” she says, “it just needs to build a few hills!”