It happened in February 1970, in Harrogate where I grew up. I was 17, working as a kennel maid while waiting to hear if I'd been granted interviews at any of the drama schools I'd applied to. I was also about to go back to London to record a demo for a record producer who believed I could be "the next Mary Hopkin". Everyone thought I was beautiful, and had my life continued along that path, I would have probably become unbearably vain and full of myself.
Then, six weeks before my 18th birthday, my motorbike collided with a drink-driver who pulled out of a side road in front of me. Conveniently, it happened right outside the A&E department of the local hospital. My face took the full force, sliced through from the bridge of my nose down to my jawline and left hanging in a flap. The nurses, who heard the crash and were first on the scene, initially thought they'd have to search for the remains in the road.
The day I was due to be transferred from my single room in the hospital to a ward, I asked for a mirror; the other patients were obviously going to stare at me and I wanted to know what they'd be looking at. The nurses were reluctant but I insisted. With my swollen face criss-crossed with black stitches I thought I resembled Herman from The Munsters, but instead of revulsion I had a strangely comforting feeling of "Aha, so this is what I've been waiting for." Perhaps that's why I managed to keep my sense of humour, and why I was more distressed about my hair being greasy than about my grotesque reflection. Or perhaps it was the drugs.
After a few weeks I had an appointment with a plastic surgeon. I assumed he would tell me he'd be able to whip me in and have me looking good as new in no time. So when he said he couldn't do anything for a year, and then it would take a succession of operations at six-monthly intervals, I was devastated. When you're 18, a year seems like eternity.
Those first 12 months were gruelling, for my parents and sister more than for me. Mum and Dad knew how ambitious I'd been and how bright my future had seemed. They wondered if I'd cope in the long term. I knew I would. But I didn't have the insight to acknowledge how angry I was, and took my frustration out on them.
For most of that time I rarely left the house at night except to walk my dog. I went to the cinema a few times but always fled before the film finished and the lights came on: missing the ending was unimportant compared with avoiding the shock on people's faces. On the few occasions I did venture out in daylight, I became furious if anyone looked at me. It was only when I hurled a cast-iron saucepan at my sister one day and realised I could have killed her that I understood I had to learn to control my temper. I had to come to terms with the fact that my life wasn't going to be what I'd expected.
The surgeon worked wonders, and after each operation my scars became slightly less evident. Eventually I overcame my horror of being pitied and started living a normal life again, defiantly behaving as though there was nothing different about me. But, to my surprise, I discovered that because I didn't try to cower away from inquisitive stares, nobody felt sorry for me. Just the opposite. People were intrigued; they saw me as a heroic figure, and I had more boyfriends than ever before. I was always being told how brave I was, and how amazing it was that it hadn't affected my personality. But it wasn't bravery. It was what would now be described as being "in denial"; a stubborn refusal on my part to accept that I was ugly. And it gradually dawned on me that the less I cared about my scars, the less people noticed them.
Someone once suggested that, with modern surgery techniques, I could have my looks improved. But why put myself through that when I'm happy with my face? The most attractive people don't have perfect features. So, although being "in denial" is viewed as a negative attitude, it worked for me. It prevented me from turning into a sad, unattractive recluse and enabled me to become a self-confident, optimistic wife and mother of three. I firmly believe that if I'd been "realistic" and accepted that my life was permanently blighted, then it would have remained so. Which is why I will always describe my experience as an example of mind over matter, rather than a catastrophe that ruined my life.
