As Sue Hanson sums up her ten years as Crossroads' troubled waitress, "It's been a very traumatic life really."
Her own career has, on the other hand, been very lucky. "I think I left Drama School at the right time. There
was plenty of work about, and I really feel sorry for all those young actors who are sitting around waiting for parts these
days."
After Drama School she went to London's world famous Mermaid Theatre where she acted in a revue with no lesser figure
than Spike Milligan. Then, her successes mounting up, she played Barbara Ferris' girlfriend in a rock and roll film
called 'Catch Us If You Can.' It starred the current pop idol, Dave Clark. Ironically while the erstwhile chart-topper
has faded away now, Sue later met and married another rock star, Carl Wayne of the Move, who is today going from strength
to strength as a solo singer, currently preparing for an appearance at the Talk of the Town club in London.
After the film, Sue progressed to a stage version of the evergreen revue, The Boyfriend, and thence to the Bristol Old
Vic. She worked on a few tele-plays for the Theatre 625 series - a 1960s version of Play for Today - and worked on another
play for Granada. Then, of course, came Crossroads.
Today's Diane may not have finished her changing - and surely never will so long as she's part of the Crossroads
team - but there's no denying that she's reached some sort of plateau in her life. The traumas of yesteryear have been
put behind her and for a while it is Diane who has the responsible role, as epitomised in her relationship with the farmhouse
in general and with Benny (Paul Henry) in particular.
"You see the farm belongs to Ed, who's my uncle and I just wanted to get away from all the problems for a while.
So I went to stay with them for a while and then my aunt died so I decided to stay on and help run the farm. At which
point I started to get involved with Benny who was sort of illerate and was working on the farm."
The problem for Diane in helping Benny was that her genuinely disinterested efforts to help him read and generally make
a better job of coping with a difficult world were taken somewhat the wrong way by the slightly backward boy. In fact
he felt he might be in love with Diane and presumed mistakenly that she felt the same way. In actual fact things surfaced
recently, since Josie, the girl from the village, has been showing an interest in him.
