Eric Sykes - Personal Life

Personal Life

Sykes became partially deaf as an adult. His hearing started to go in the Second World War, and he had an operation in 1952 followed by another two years later. When he came round from the second one he was stone deaf. His spectacles contained no lenses but were a bone-conducting hearing aid. Disciform macular degeneration, brought about by age and possibly smoking, left Sykes partially sighted, and he was registered as blind. He was a patron of the Macular Disease Society. He stopped smoking cigarettes in November 1966, but continued to smoke cigars. In 2002 he suffered a stroke and underwent heart bypass surgery.

He married Edith Eleanore Milbrandt on 14 February 1952 and they had three daughters, Catherine, Julie, Susan, and a son, David.

In the British New Year Honours List published on 31 December 2004, Sykes was awarded a CBE for services to drama, following a petition by MPs. Sykes was an honorary president of the Goon Show Preservation Society.

He was a follower of Oldham Athletic and at one point in the 1970s he was an Honorary Director of the club.