Philip's pal asked me to teach Charles art of love; THREE-PAGE SPECIAL ON AMAZING LIFE OF CORONATION STREET STAR MY STORY By AMANDA BARRIE.

CORONATION Street star Amanda Barrie was asked by a friend of the Royal Family to seduce Prince Charles.

Amanda, who plays the Street's vamp Alma Baldwin, was a 23-year-old chorus girl when a royal go-between asked her: "Would you like to help in the initiation of the future King?".

Uppercrust actor James Robertson-Justice, who was working on the film A Pair Of Briefs with Amanda, made the astonishing proposition over a drink.

Amanda recalls: "He said to me, 'What I'm going to ask you is the ultimate compliment, but it won't sound like it. Please don't be offended by it'.

"He was obviously very embarrassed by what he had to say and went round and round in circles before it came out.

"Finally, he admitted that he was one of eight people who had been selected to help 'launch the royal males into their future life', as he put it.

"Between them they had to choose anyone they thought would be suitable to teach Prince Charles about sex and James had decided I was suitable.

"He actually said, 'We don't really want people who are experienced but on the other hand, well, obviously they have to know the ropes. Frankly, the main thing one needs is a sense of humour and I know you have got that'."

Dashing Robertson- Justice had been friends with Prince Philip for more than 20 years. They met in the Fifties at the Saddle Room, a club run by singer Helene Cordet.

James asked Amanda to join him at his castle in Scotland, saying the 'Family' would be there.

"He never said in so many words what I would be expected to do, but it was very clear that I was supposed to be there for Prince Charles, who was 15 and at Gordonstoun.

"It certainly wasn't meant to be a one-off. James indicated that if things went well, I would be a kind of fixture - not a girlfriend, but someone in the background.

"He actually said, 'They can't possibly go off into the world without their own person'. No payment was offered at all."

The bizarre encounter took place in a bar in Elstree where Amanda - still wearing her Vidal Sassoon theatrical wig and false eye lashes - was filming with James.

Shooting

Amanda said: "The one thing that put me off was that James also suggested I take a pair of khaki shorts to go shooting.

"It was the khaki shorts that did it. I couldn't possibly imagine me, in my wig and false eyelashes, dressed in khaki shorts striding across the moors.

"I had this terrible image of having to face the Queen over breakfast. What would she say? 'So, Amanda, how was it?'

"I also thought that because Charles was so young, it might be a dreadful experience and I might be blamed. James asked me because he thought I could cope with the Royal family, because I had such a sense of humour, but I had to say no. And he said, 'Well if you aren't interested, please don't tell anyone', so I didn't, not for years."

But Amanda did confide in her mother.

"She was furious with me for turning him down. If she'd had James' number she would have rung him and said, 'Take my daughter.'

"She said to me, 'You could be the next Nell Gwynne!' "

It was Amanda's mother, a cross between Hya-cinth Bouquet and Edina in Absolutely Fabulous, who had pushed Amanda - born Shirley Broadbent in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire - to get to the top, right from the start.

Amanda, now known to millions as the screen wife of Mike Baldwin played by Johnny Briggs, was just three years old when she took to the stage.

"She named me after Shirley Temple and sent me to dancing school. People often ask if I wanted to go into the theatre, but I never had a choice. My mother put me there.

"Every night at home, the carpet went back and I had to dance something. When we went on holiday she packed my tap shoes.

"If there was a competition she would enter me in it and even if we went to the panto she would put me in the aisle seat so

when the comic want- ed someone I'd be picked. I can't say I enjoyed it. I don't know if this is what I would have done if it hadn't been for my mother."

A natural clown and rebel, Amanda was expelled from her first school, in Lytham St Anne's, Lancashire, after playing truant to go to a ballet class.

She was expelled from her second, a ballet school, after slipping away to join older students going for an audition at the Drury Lane Theatre to become the only one offered a part, in the chorus of Cinderella in Glasgow.

She was then hired by the theatre company, Howard And Wyndham, who gave her the name Amanda Barrie.

After a few months in Glasgow, Amanda was sent to London.

Her parents, in the throes of a divorce, were happy for her to go her own way and at just 13, she was living in Soho, at a girls' hostel called the Theatre Girls Club , surrounded by the pimps and prostitutes who became her friends.

"It was one of the happiest times of my life. The prostitutes were wonderful. I'd walk down Greek Street at 2.30 in the morning and know I was safe.

"They were big women, most of them had been in the streets for 30 years. If any kerb crawler approached me they'd tell him to clear off and leave me alone.

"A few years later, when I had my own flat in Soho, they still kept an eye on me.

"They'd always tell me if they saw someone dodgy hanging around, and I always felt safe as long as they were there. It was only after the prostitutes went that Soho became dangerous, and I moved out."

By the time she was 16, Amanda was dancing at the notorious Winston's Club, with Barbara Windsor and Danny la Rue.

"They always used to get Barbara and I to dance together because she had everything up top and I had no bust at all - we looked so funny together. There were always men around us. We'd never realised the erotic impact a group of chorus girls dressed in tights had on men.

"The producers were the worst, using their power to try and get us into bed.

"Once when I auditioned for a big show in Scotland, the producer said 'I would like you to be in the show on the condition that you will eat and be seen out with me.' I ended up escorting him everywhere, but nothing else was ever suggested."

When Amanda was 17 she fell in love with a writer called John Law, five years her senior.

"We met in Scotland, he was writing for Five Past Eight, the show I was in at the time, and soon he was writing numbers for me to get out of the chorus.

"John and I were together for three years, but our relationship was pure show business.

"We were in love with show business and the theatre and we ate, slept and drank it.

"John proposed to me but I just thought, 'I can't get married and have children, that's not me'.

"I couldn't bear the idea of giving up the theatre. That was my family and I didn't feel the need for another."

At work, Amanda yearned to get out of the chorus. By the time she was in her late teens and early 20s, she was dividing her time between cabaret and television - she did the first Jimmy Tarbuck show, and the first Morecambe and Wise show, which turned into a disaster when her skirt fell off halfway through the show.

"I was always a disaster. The first show I ever did, I was busy gazing at the principal boy and fell into the pit, straight into the brass section.

"Producers were always having a go at me. But in a way that's what got me out of the chorus because at least I got noticed.

"I never really had one big break, I had a series of small breaks. I was prepared to do anything."

When James Robertson-Justice asked Amanda to take on the pubescent Prince Charles, she was on the verge of stardom, about to star in the Carry On films - and enjoy a year-long love affair with Billy Fury.

But she would never forget her chorus roots.

"The first time I sat in the leading lady's dressing room, on my own, I was in floods of tears.

"I had made it, but I was so unhappy because I missed the companionship of the chorus so much. I always will."

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Title Annotation:	Features
Author:	Barrowclough, Anne
Publication:	Sunday Mirror (London, England)
Date:	Mar 31, 1996
Words:	1472
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