As a teen I was lost.. I had an abortion and me and mum never spoke of it again..I just got on

Eileen Grimshaw actress opens up ahead of her return to Weatherfield

- SUE CRAWFORD

Whether she is brawling with Gail Platt or putting people in their place in the Rovers Return, Eileen Grimshaw is a formidable person to cross.

But as actress Sue Cleaver prepares to return to Coronation Street after a summer on the West End stage, she has revealed how as a teenager she was a far cry from her feisty character, admitting she battled hidden fears that left her too terrified even to speak to her fans.

Sue has opened up about how her insecurities set in as a young girl when she found herself being taken advantage of by older boyfriends, which led to her having an abortion at 17.

She eventually told her mum but begged her not to tell her dad. Now Sue wants to help other women by speaking up about her own growth, and resilience.

She says: "For quite a few years, if somebody came up to me in the street, the inside of my stomach muscles would tense up and I would be thinking, 'Oh God, don't come over. Don't come over. Don't come over'.

"It absolutely terrified me when people did. I'd be thinking, 'I've got nothing to offer you. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do.

"It was fear, pure and simple. I don't think I handled it well at all. My confident exterior was paper-thin." A s a teenager she lost her virginity to an older boy, at 16 she ran off with a sailor and lived in a A bedsit and at 17 she became pregnant after falling for a 35-year-old man.

"I looked for love and validation and acceptance in all the wrong places and my first sexual encounters were with somebody who was four or five years older than me," Sue says.

"Nowadays that would be unthinkable, but it wasn't at the time.