It's Not a Rehearsal: Amanda Barrie the Autobiography

SHE needs no introduction and was perhaps best known as Alma in Coronation Street.

However Amanda Barrie's personal life is possibly more entertaining than life on the Street ever was for Alma Baldwin.

In this brutally honest book, Barrie tells us about her disrupted childhood -- she was devastated when her parents, from Ashton Under Lyne, split. After being almost unnaturally doted upon by her mother, Barrie was suddenly packed off to boarding school at the age of 12, a move she says completely devastated her.

However it was at school that she developed her first lesbian relationship, albeit a relatively innocent one, with the school's head girl.

Whilst on Coronation Street Barrie was careful to keep her sexuality under wraps and away from the press, she continued to have relationships with both men and women.

Of course it's her time on one of the word's most popular soaps that proves interesting reading -- although the whole book is a revelation -- and a 'behind the scenes' insight into the cast is fascinating.

(Amanda Barrie the Autobiography, £6.99 Headline books)