LEAH Bracknell’s widower has said that watching Ricky Gervais’s After Life helped him grieve for the actress.

The Emmerdale star, 55, died in September after a three-year battle with lung cancer.

Jez Hughes, who lives in Worthing, revealed he watched the Netflix series about a middle-aged man trying to cope with his wife’s death from breast cancer and related to the plight of Ricky’s character.

He said of the show: “It was bitingly close to the bone but there were moments that captured something honest and true, which I suppose is the point of all art – the moment where we are able to step out of the cage of isolation into something greater than ourselves through shared experience.”

Leah, who left daughters Lily and Maya, was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2016.

She played Zoe Tate on the TV soap Emmerdale from 1989 to 2005.

Jez said Ricky’s drama had helped him realise that with death “I have no choice”.

He said: “When you come that close to it with someone who you share your heart, you begin to understand and experience death in a completely new and visceral way.

“It’s certainly nothing to be romanticised.

“You understand that often, we have no choice – our excessive belief in free will in modernity is just another illusion.

“There are fates and forces at work that are far beyond our understanding or ability to change.”

Opening up about his loss on Facebook, Jez added: “A thought came to me yesterday that I’m going to have to completely rebuild my life.

“No one expects to become a widower at 46.

“In a way, I’m glad there is a name, a transitional identity or framing of an experience that is so huge, so beyond words, that threatens to overwhelm at every turn.”

Jez expressed how the loss and grief had made it difficult to do even simple everyday tasks.

He added: “Grief needs both big, clear and open skies – to be able to see beyond the horizon – and at the same time small skies filled with clouds and rain – to experience the lashing wind

and drench you in the bitter tears of memory and loss.

“Which is why it is difficult to focus on filling in your tax returns or paying all the overdue parking fines.

“Or, even mundane conversations.

“It’s why the grieving want the world to stand still as that famous poem expressed, just for a bit, so they can rediscover their footing, find their moorings again.

“I share these words to feel them as well.”

Leah previously described how she had an “attitude of gratitude” during her cancer battle.

She was often vocal about her cancer treatment, sharing her experiences in a blog and through interviews.

In the months leading up to her death she wrote The Cancer Rebel’s Manifesto for Life to “reject the notion of being a victim”.

In it, she said: “I rebel against the fear of cancer, against pity from others and myself, against being defined by cancer and against being bullied by cancer.”

In her final interview in August, she said that she wouldn’t “let herself live in fear’ adding that she was ‘just going to have a good life”.

She said: “I don’t need to go and fulfil a bucket list, that’s not my style.

“I just want to do the things I want to do while I am healthy and strong.

“I won’t let myself live in fear, I’m just going to live a good life.”

The TV star, who also had roles in A Touch Of Frost, The Royal Today and DCI Banks, was diagnosed in September 2016 after rapid weight gain around her abdomen and breathlessness prompted her to seek medical help.

After she was diagnosed, fans helped her raise more than £50,000 to undergo groundbreaking treatment in Germany, which she later revealed had failed.

While undergoing treatment, the media personality married her long-term partner Jez in a quiet ceremony at a Grade II listed Georgian building in Horsham.