The only way I could express myself was through drama...

SHE had a childhood that would have made Dickens weep - the only child of a mentally ill single mother with an explosive temper. But young Carol Harrison found ways to escape her horrendous home life - first through her imagination and then through the East End Mod scene.

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The Small Faces, and in particular their charismatic singer Steve Marriott, opened her eyes to a different life.

"I met Stevie when I was nine or 10," Carol tells me. "My older cousins were Mods and they were his friends. We all used to go to my auntie Chrissie's house in Manor Park.

"He was wonderfully funny, a proper East End chap and so tiny - just 5ft 4. When you met Steve, it was like fireworks. He was so 'out there'. Life didn't have to be miserable."

Carol - best known for playing Louise Raymond, Grant Mitchell's mother-in-law and lover, in BBC soap EastEnders - has devoted a decade of her life to celebrating the memory of Marriott's Small Faces.

She wrote and produced the critically acclaimed 2016 stage show, All Or Nothing - The Musical, featuring hits like Itchycoo Park, Lazy Sunday, Sha La La La Lee and barnstorming 1966 chart-topper All Or Nothing itself.

Performing has helped Harrison get over her traumatic upbringing, she says.

"I realised mum wasn't normal when I was about six. She was unhappy all the time but she never got any help. She would rant and rave about everyone. I would have to stand up to that and it made me desperately unhappy too.

"I used to shut myself in the coal cupboard and dream. I got away from reality and lived in a fantasy, that was my escape.

"It's why I became an actress - the only way I could express myself was through drama."

Her mother Frances never sought help because her own aunt had been sectioned.

"She was paranoid and suffered badly from depression. It was like she was bipolar but without the manic side. People in our street used to call her 'the mad woman'."

Carol pauses and adds: "I had a breakdown when I was 18 because of it. I tried to commit suicide." She took an overdose and spent three months in a psychiatric hospital.

Growing up in Upton Park, east London, Carol dreamt of being Doris Day or Calamity Jane.