As an actress she was best known for her role as Magda ‘Mags’ ­Czajkowski, the EastEnders caterer who became Dirty Den’s mistress in 1987, departing the series in 1988 after being gazumped while trying to buy a house in Albert Square.

Earlier she had played the bolshie nurse Rose Butchins (1979-81) in the medical drama Angels, and later had brief stints as the sulky-faced Rovers barmaid Carol Starkey in ­Coronation Street (1995), and as the reporter ­Helen Ackroyd in Emmerdale (1997).

Kathryn Apanowicz, born on June 3, 1960, was half Polish. Her father, a baker, had been a Polish RAF pilot in World War II. Her mother was a hairdresser.

At the age of eight, Apanowicz landed a slot as a presenter on the Yorkshire television children’s variety show ­Junior Showtime, which she carried on doing until it went off air in 1974. In her teens she had a small role in the film Bugsy Malone (1976).

Later she worked at Yorkshire ­Television’s regional news magazine programme Calendar before turning to acting.

She had first set eyes on Richard Whiteley aged nine in the Yorkshire Television offices when he was a 25-year-old reporter with Calendar. They first spoke when she was 17, and later they danced at the Yorkshire ­Television Christmas staff party.

“Our friendship developed,” she recalled, “and, when I was 18 and he was 34, and had already been married and divorced, we became lovers. Our difference in ages was never mentioned, but my mother and father had a 16-year age gap.”

In the late 1970s, however, she moved to London after winning her role on Angels, and their affair then became intermittent.

She recalled that the hospital-set drama, famous for its shoddy sets and clunky storylines, caused a stir by tackling issues such as contraception, alcoholism and promiscuity as part of the nurses’ lives.

Apanowicz’s relationship with Whiteley became more serious in the early 1990s and in 1998 they moved in together, renovating a house in the Yorkshire Dales.

In the early 1990s she worked at the cable channel Wire TV, presenting its magazine programme Afternoon Live. In 2000 she was one of the presenters of ITV’s daily chat show, Live Talk, alongside Anne Diamond and Coleen Nolan.

She was also a presenter for BBC Radio Leeds and a guest presenter for BBC Radio York.

In her memoir of her partner, Apanowicz recalled their mutual enjoyment of racing, walking on the Yorkshire moors, going to the theatre or simply being at home together.

She was able to tease him, once joking of his nickname “twice-nightly” Whiteley: “Twice nightly? I can say it’s sometimes thrice nightly. This man’s a martyr to his bladder.”

In 2017, she described as “ridiculous” claims by the actor Ricky ­Tomlinson that Whiteley had been an undercover agent for MI5 who helped him get sent to prison in 1973 when he was convicted of conspiracy to intimidate during a national building workers’ strike.

Tomlinson, a former plasterer, believed the jury might have been influenced by an ITV documentary co-presented by Whiteley. But Apanowicz insisted her partner’s asthma and poor grasp of technology meant there was no chance he could have coped with a role as a secret agent.

Richard Whiteley died in 2005.