For me it was a tremendous experience.  I was really thrown in at the deep end.  It was my first television part and it was very difficult.  The pressure is tremendous.  At first I was like a rabbit caught in headlights.  I didn't know what to do or what to think.  But I was lucky, nothing drastic went wrong.  The great thing was that, unlike Play of the Week, if something was not so good in episode one you could always try to do better with episodes three and four.

 

The only funny incident was the time they forgot to put film in the camera.  They'd warmed them up and then found there was no film! 

 

Most of the time I commuted from my flat in Chelsea to Birmingham.  I learned my lines and marked up the script on the train.  It's only when you appear in Crossroads that you realise the power of the programme.  As Lucy I was voted the sixth most hated girl in Britain by readers of The Sun.  After only one appearance, people would come up to me in the street, grab my arm and call me Lucy.  They believe everything they see.

 

Just before Christmas I was buying presents in a store.  There was a long queue at the pay desk.  I was paying by cheque and couldn't find my pen so I just borrowed one off the till without thinking.  When I put it back and handed over the cheque the woman cashier said: 'If I was your mother you wouldn't behave like that in my house!'  She really thought I was the obnoxious 17 year old that I played.

 

There I was, a 23 year old actress being told off while the rest of the queue listened and agreed with her.  I was so embarrassed.

 

Would I go back into Crossroads?  It sounds very grand and pompous and I don't mean to be - but it would depend on the storyline and where I was at in my career.  If nothing was happening in two years time, then I might be glad to go back."