Royle family and Brookside star Sue Johnston has said she still shudders and moves aside when someone runs up behind her - 50 years after she was sexually attacked.
Sue, who was born in Warrington and grew up in Prescot, said she will never get over the attack.
Sue said: “I can’t even now, 50 years later, have somebody run up behind me. I have to step aside, I think it’s just an instinct.
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"That is 50 years later, so you can imagine I’m not the only one. People do things to people and they walk away from it and have no idea of the impact and the horror of how they have affected people, how they affected people’s lives.
"And it does, it changes your life.”
Sue, 78, spoke about the 1970 assault in her autobiography writing that she feared at the time she would be killed but fought the attacker off and managed to escape, the Mirror reports.
She then acted out a similar attack in Brookside when her character Shelia Grant was raped in the soap in 1986.
Speaking on Channel 4’s Extraordinary Escapes this week, Sue tells friend Sandi Toksvig: “I had been sexually attacked when I was 27. And I’d never talked about it. I’d never told my parents and never talked about it to anyone except the people around me at the time.
“But when they called me and said they were going to do this storyline, I told them it happened exactly how I’d been attacked. And I was so scared that the reality would cross with the fantasy that I wouldn’t be able to control myself.
"But actually, it released something in me that I was able to talk about it. And women were writing in and I went to write rape crisis groups and I was able to share that. It was good therapy for me.
"It was also good for other women.”
The show sees the two spend time together in Cornwall, where they embark on a glorious bonding escape.
Sandi said: “Sue Johnston – I think the whole world is in love with her and will be more so after this. There’s a surprising conversation she and I have over a cup of tea in the kitchen. I can’t remember how we got into it, but she started talking so honestly about her life.
"It’s one of those rare moments in television where I actually thought after we’d finished the recording, there’s no way they’ll broadcast this because I was literally just sitting there with tears running down my face but it’s in the show and I’m really proud of it.
“I’m really proud that it’s not just laughter and that there are more serious moments where we really talk together.”
Extraordinary Escapes airs at 9pm on Thursday on Channel 4
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