Ronnie Corbett's devoted wife Anne reveals his secret battle with deadly motor neurone disease...

Ronnie Corbett's devoted wife Anne reveals his secret battle with deadly motor neurone disease: Comedian was dignified to the end and 'never once grumbled' about his cruel illness. Britain's best-loved comedian slipped away yesterday morning with his adored wife, the actress Anne Hart, and their daughters, Emma and Sophie, at his bedside. Next month, Ronnie and Anne would have reached their golden wedding anniversary, but though the world did not know, it had been tragically apparent for months that Ronnie, 85, would not live to celebrate that special occasion. The illness which has ended his life began around Christmas 2014, when, in the words of his wife Anne, 'he started to feel unwell and found it hard to breathe and to lie down'. 'At first Ron said he would never be comfortable with it on, but it turned out to be just the best thing,' said Anne. 'It was only air, but it transformed things so that Ron was able to lie down and sleep.' Meanwhile, Ronnie underwent more tests before the couple returned to see Professor Polkey in March last year. His diagnosis came as a shock. 'He told us it was most likely to be amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known in the UK as motor neurone disease,' Anne told me. A rare condition, ALS damages parts of the nervous system, meaning that breathing and other muscle activities can become increasingly difficult. 'As you can imagine, it just knocked us both back. We had not really heard of it. If it hadn't been for Stephen Hawking (who suffers from the disease) and the Eddie Redmayne film about him, The Theory Of Everything, we would not have heard of it at all.' It seemed certain the Queen would have been delighted to dub him a knight of the realm. Only recently she revealed that watching Ronnie and his late partner Ronnie Barker in re-runs of The Two Ronnies is among her favourite TV viewing. But it was not to be, and Ronnie Corbett has died a plain mister. But he was a giant of comedy for all tha