Paul O'Grady is still struggling to cope with Cilla Black's death

Paul O’Grady admits he’s still struggling with the death of his close friend Cilla Black, and still finds it difficult to cope knowing she’s not around.

The Blind Date presenter died aged 72 in August last year at her Estepona holiday home following a fall. Some 16 months on, Paul says the loss isn’t getting much easier.

The festive season is particularly poignant for the 61-year-old star, who is currently playing the wicked stepmother in Cinderella at the London Palladium. Paul told Best magazine that Cilla would always leave him a gift in his dressing room.

“Christmas can bring up mixed emotions, it will be sad in a way. Cilla used to send me a single orchid when I was doing theatre.

“She’d always leave a note saying: ‘Let’s see how long this survives! But there are no orchids waiting for me anymore.

“And our Jackie [Collins] would always send me a bottle of champagne. And now they’ve both gone,” he continued.

“I’ll be raising a glass or two to them this year that’s for sure.”

If all that wasn’t tear-jerking enough, Paul’s also been filming his ITV show For The Love Of Dogs for the festive season – but he’s promised he’ll try to keep it all lighthearted.

“We try and keep it light, we don’t want a terrible tragedy at Christmas!,” he laughed. “We have sad stories but they have happy endings.

“There’s a lovely Collie I was tempted to take home, an old boy whose owner had died.“And there was a whole litter of black, pug puppies which they shoved me in the middle of.

“If I’d had died and gone to heaven in that moment, I’d have died happy.”