"But when I arranged my own wedding that September I still remembered my old friends in the cast and invited them all.

Not one of the cast came.

Danny La Rue gave me away, and two former Crossroads stars, Peter Brooks and Caroline Dowdeswell, were there.  So were 3,000 fans.

Some of the cast did send letters saying that they couldn't make it and wishing us luck.  But I was disappointed.  It was the only thing that marred our wedding day.

Noele Gordon said the reason none of them could make it was because they didn't finish filming Crossroads until 8 pm on the eve of the wedding.  She said it would have meant getting up at 6 am to get to the wedding.  That wouldn't have been much of an effort, would it?  It all seems so sad when we were such good friends.

One time I invited Noele and her mother to go to Jersey with me for the weekend and I paid their fares.  It was a friendly gesture for the times I'd stayed with them.  But when we arrived in Jersey there was a message for Noele to ring home immediately.  Her house had been burgled and all her jewellery stolen.  She and her mother caught the next plane back, and left me in Jersey on my own.

I had 89 rings at the time and I was so sorry that Noele had lost her jellewery that I told her to pick any of mine she would like to borrow until she could replace hers.

Later, when I left the programme and mntioned in an interview that I had not heard from Noele for months, in spite of lending her the jewellery, and us being such friends, she sent them back by registered post with a curt note.  It said: 'Jewellery returned, please send a receipt and inform the Press.'

"I was really upset.  I sent her a letter back which said 'Jewellery received.  Press informed.'"

"Another hurtful thing happened when Jo Richardson, who played Mrs Witton in the Crossroads motel, died on holiday in the Seychelles in a swimming accident.  She was a great friend and I had had Christmas dinner with her and her family that year.  ATV arranged a memorial service in Birmingham Cathedral which was by invitation only.  But they didn't send me one.

Yet unlike some other members of the Crossroads cast, I had always obeyed the rules and toed the line.  According to the rules of our contract - even though they were weekly - we weren't allowed to make personal appearances or give TV or newspaper interviews without ATV permission.  I always asked and I always abided by their decision.  But I began to notice how they started to clamp down on me when I was getting popular.

When Gordon and I went to Jersey on holiday the newspapers all ran stories about how Amy Turtle had again chosen the island for her holidays and took pictures of us arriving at the airport.  Then Channel television wanted us to be interviewed on their news programme.  I told them that I had to get it cleared by ATV first.

But the outcome was that they refused.  Channel TV were amazed and rang ATV themselves.  They cam back to me and said: 'You were right.  They say you've just finished playing a drop-out and they don't want people to see you so radiant.' 

"Yet all the people in Jersey knew I was there from my picture in the paper and from seeing me around the hotel."