The Sonia Fowler actress said the moment occured shortly into her relationship with her partner Marc Humphreys

Former EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy has revealed she was left ‘petrified’ after being visited by the ‘very real’ ghost of her late mum.

The Sonia Fowler actress left the BBC series earlier in the year after playing the character on and off for more than 30 years.

Viewers saw Sonia leave Albert Square for Bali alongside her sister Bianca Jackson and daughters Bex and Hope Fowler.

Sonia’s exit arrived after she learned her dad Terry Cant had sinister motivations just days after meeting him for the first time in her life.

Since leaving Albert Square, Natalie was seen winning the latest season of ITV reality series Cooking with the Stars.

Additionally, Natalie has presented What’s The Big Deal for Channel 4 and hosted a show on Virgin Radio UK on Easter Monday.

Earlier in the month, Natalie released her first autobiography Happy Days, which saw her delving inside her life away from the spotlight.

One portion of the book saw Natalie speaking about her mum Evelyn, who tragically passed away following a battle with bowel cancer in 2002.

According to Natalie, one night while she was lying in bed shortly after she began seeing her partner Marc Humphreys, her mum appeared to her.

“About two weeks after I’d got together with Marc, I was in bed asleep one night and I woke up to this baking hot sensation. It felt like I’d just got off an aeroplane in a hot country.

“I opened my eyes and saw my mum sitting at the end of my bed, smiling at me. I blinked and blinked again. She wasn’t floating like a ghost or an apparition – she was very real and there were folds in the duvet around where she was sitting.

“Petrified, I reached out to my bedside light and switched it on. In an instant, the warmth was gone and so was Mum,” she wrote.

While she wouldn’t describe herself as someone who believes ‘one way or another in the supernatural’, Natale said the incident led to a conversation about the afterlife with Marc.

“It was about two o’clock in the morning, but I immediately picked up the phone and rang Marc. And I said, ‘The weirdest thing has just happened to me.’

“That fleeting moment was over very quickly,” she admitted, “but I won’t ever forget that warmth and Mum’s smile. I absolutely believe it was Mum showing me that she was happy for me that I’d met Marc,” she said.

The incident made Natalie ‘more scared of being on her own at night’ and she ‘didn’t ever want it to happen again’.

She explained: “Even now, I’ll lie in bed and think of it. People say, ‘You had your head in the clouds after meeting Marc, so maybe it didn’t actually happen, maybe it was a dream’.

“Maybe they’re right and it was just a very vivid dream, who knows? Mum had passed away 11 years earlier, but I felt her presence and I saw her. I’ve never had an experience like it since.”