Maureen Lipman’s partner of 13 years, Guido Castro, dies aged 84

Maureen Lipman has spoken of her heartbreak after her partner of 13 years Guido Castro died after contracting Covid-19.

The TV star, who was by his side when he died, was previously married to the writer Jack Rosenthal, who died in 2004. She began seeing Castro in 2008.

Castro, an Egyptian Jew and retired computer technician, was 84 and reportedly had Parkinson’s when he caught the virus, which Lipman said “weakened him terribly”.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: “We don’t know how he got [Covid-19] or when or if he had it when he got the vaccine.”

Asked about his death, she said: “I said to Guido: ‘It’s time to go. You’ve got to let go.’ And I think for once in his life he actually did what I told him.”

In a 2014 interview, Lipman said Castro “came over here to go to Oxford, then stayed when all the Jews were kicked out of Egypt in 1956”.