Having done one or two pantos himself, Ian Botham told me he'd rather walk from Lands End to John O'Groats than put himself through two and a half hours of a Theatre Royal pantomime.

"Where do you get your stamina from?" he asked me son Martin Barrass and moi. We couldn't believe what we were hearing from our mega-hero.

He was completely bowled over by our athleticism, and our legs were all a googly as our hero heaped praise on us.

The Evening Press took a photo of us with Ian, which is still my most cherished possession - you can steal me money, you can steal the clothes from off me back, but I'll swing for the person who steals that photo from me.

To be fair to our hero, that conversation took place several years back when we had breath left after a performance to talk to the greats of cricket.

These days there is very little breath left after a 'perf' and every ounce of energy is reserved for the next show.

Oh, me son's still a bit more agile than me, but then he is a month younger than his mam!

Our back-stage antics are bordering on the infantile. I can't turn a corner of that building without getting a glass of water thrown at me.

It all started on our opening night when our millionairess Principal Girl (Suzy Cooper) was complaining that one of her designer-label costumes was too large for her.

Being the old fashioned sort of woman I am, I thought I'd help her predicament, so I went downstairs to the Green Room, filled a bucket of water and threw it over her.

Now every mam knows that water is the most effective and fastest way of shrinking clothes. Me and me son also happen to think this method is extremely funny.

But not me daughter, Suzy. She stalks back-stage like a demented budgie clutching a meagre glass of water ready to pounce on this unsuspecting Dame.

The first two glasses she threw at me were mildly amusing I have to confess, but she obviously hadn't learned that a bucket of water is much funnier than a glass of water.

So last night, I walked into her dressing room and threw another bucket of water over her. Everyone thought this was hysterical, even our Plum Ranger Principal Boy (the gorgeous Juliet Howland) who after a burst of the giggles, instantly stopped and exclaimed "why am I laughing? I'm far too intelligent to laugh at a bucket of water!"

Most of me son's jokes are about as memorable as an Italian Prime Minister, but he did make me laugh in our dressing room the other day when we were discussing parent-hood - "I was very surprised when my wife told me she was pregnant, because we sleep in separate beds and neither of us like to travel."

I've yet to find one adult or child that has seen The Worst Witch series I was recently in for Children's ITV.

However, the powers that be have decided we should make a second series that nobody will watch!

Grafters was a little more popular and that too is going for a second series. My character will be a little more prominent than in the first series - I've been promised two lines instead of one.

22/01/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.