As far as Sue Hanson can see, Diane Lawton, unlike the Midlands figures who make up so many of the Crossroads characters, is a northerner.  "She's very north country, her bark's worse than her bite, she may seem pretty hard at times but underneath she's really very soft.  Everything that I can't be as Sue Hanson, I try to put into Diane.  The part doesn't actually take me over, after all it is a job, but I do draw on many personal experiences and resources to create the figure.  But overall there's this feeling of putting together a figure who is everything I would like to be but can't be.  So I try to make her very complex and above all interesting."

 

And Diane's future?  After all her traumas and troubles, Sue would like to see Diane having a more settled, generally happier period for a while.  "I would like to see her have a successful relationship, as long as it was still an exciting one too."  Whether the fortunes of Crossroads most troubled regular will permit her such a happy event is byond Sue Hanson's knowledge, but she remains optimistic.  After ten years of traumas, maybe she's got a point.  Even problem children have to have their fun occasionally.