It’s goodbye to Harriet (Picture: ITV/Metro.co.uk)

Emmerdale said goodbye to long-time character Harriet Finch (Katherine Dow Blyton) in the most spectacular way possible, as the police-officer was crushed by a quad bike as she rushed to help Amelia Spencer (Daisy Campbell) who was lost in the horrific storm.

As the quad bike exploded, Kim Tate (Claire King), who’d arrived on horseback and found there was nothing she could do to help Harriet, was thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious.

As she came round she discovered that it was too late to help Harriet. She told her love rival that she was sorry and left, telling Will (Dean Andrews), Dawn (Olivia Bromley) and Billy (Jay Kontzle) that nothing could have been done to save Harriet.

Katherine Dow Blyton has been reflecting on her 10 years in Emmerdale and says there’s one thing about being Harriet that she won’t miss.

‘I will very much miss playing her although I won’t miss wearing the police uniform,’ she says.

‘What I loved about coming into Emmerdale and what really made me want to play Harriet was because she was coming in as the vicar. I loved playing the vicar and the fact that she was flawed and she was a bit off the wall. She had a sense of humour and I loved the character. I’ll very much miss her but she’s with me obviously. We’re not too dissimilar.’

While Katherine got ‘very emotional’ reading the death scenes when she got the scripts, she says in practice the conditions when they were filmed stopped her from feeling too sad.

Driving on a quad in the middle of a storm was never going to end well (Picture: ITV)

‘On the actual day I was covered in blood and I had various bits of woodland hanging out of my hair,’ she reveals. ‘We had these industrial wind machines which were literally blowing sand and debris into your eyes. So when it came to it, it wasn’t as emotional because the technicality of what you have to do takes away from the emotion so I managed to get through the day without sobbing.’

She doesn’t think the fact that she has left has hit her yet. ‘The death wasn’t my last scene though but on my last day I received flowers and lovely gifts and messages. I don’t think it will hit me that I’m not going back for a couple of weeks because it feels like I’m on a break, but it will slowly hit me.’

Katherine says that the thing she’ll miss the most about Emmerdale is the people she worked with. ‘Working with Olivia Bromley has been an absolute joy,’ she says. ‘She’s one of the nicest, sweetest people. The highlights are with the people I’ve worked with.’

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This also includes Jeff Hordley, with whom she shared her most memorable scenes. ‘Having an affair with Cain was stand-out,’ she says. ‘And being involved in all the Malone storyline was a tricky one to do but enjoyable in a weird way.’

Katherine has no immediate plans after Emmerdale but is looking forward to a rest.

‘For the first time in my life I don’t have any plans. I think I need time to decompress and to reevaluate what I want the next part of my life to be. I have so many big decisions but I’m going to feel my way for the rest of this year and reconnect with my friends in London,’ she says.

‘Just live my life for a bit and not set my alarm for 5:30 in the morning. I’m leaving it up to the universe for a couple of months just to see where life takes me.

It’s time to say goodbye!