'You could make a movie out of my life'

"I've never believed in suicide, never been down that road, but there were times when I couldn't see the wood for the trees," admits Wendy Bowker.

"My friends were very supportive, but one minute we were up there, the next we had nothing. If it hadn't been for my three dogs, maybe I wouldn't even have got out of bed."

The anxiety caused her to lose three stones - "no bad thing" - after being thrown out of a slimming class for being too argumentative.

Now she is about to become manager of internationally-acclaimed artist Mackenzie Thorpe's gallery and studio in Richmond and is the story consultant - the inside information - on the hugely popular television series Bad Girls, about the harsh reality of life in a women's prison. For 39-year-old Wendy Bowker, confidently and vivaciously born again, the Bad times have never been better. "You could make a little film about me," she says.

So does she mind her gay relationships being discussed? It is, she says, a bit too late for that.

Born into a staunchly Catholic family in Liverpool, she was sent to a Jewish secondary school - "there were no Catholic schools nearby, and they certainly wouldn't sent me to a Protestant one" - and made a fortune, she says, from selling illicit bacon sandwiches and playing pitch and toss.

Some time during a jolly, four-hour dinner on Tuesday it occurred that she might be joking. Almost certainly she wasn't.

She also remains a fervent follower of Liverpool Football Club, a passion ignited when she was eight. "I remember being told that I shouldn't go on the Kop because people would pee in my pocket. I was quite disappointed that they didn't."

Though studying interior design at college, she wavered between police and prison service. "I liked the discipline, the routine and - that old classic - I liked helping people." She had also been brought up with Within These Walls - a 1970s Bad Girls - starring Googie Withers as the governor Faye Boswell and Mona Bruce as the square-jawed chief officer, Mrs Armitage. "I was frightened to death of Mrs Armitage".

Both, she believes, reflected accurately the women's prisons of their time - and how conditions dramatically have changed. So, more surprisingly, did Porridge.

They were the days of fictional chief officers like the irascible Mr Mackay and of a real life officer of Wendy's acquaintance who became so frustrated that she threw the master keys off Southend pier. Replacing every lock and key in the place cost half a million quid.

"Officers could be running to a major incident and be sent back because they weren't wearing a cap. It didn't matter that their mate might be being murdered." Now, she says, prison is much more violent - a reality she has tried to reflect in Bad Girls. "It's a pretty tough existence at every level, officers and inmates.

"Most of the characters are based on people I've met, mainly the murderers because you spend more time with them."

She served on Holloway ("just a big gay club"), Frankland, Durham ("Rose West has the penthouse suite now") and Askham Grange, near York, where she ran the mother and baby unit - "emotional, interesting and extremely lively".

"People who say that prison is like a holiday camp and they'd like to be in there are really being very ignorant. Okay there's integral sanitation, but it's still only two feet from the bed."

After nine years within widely flung walls - she knew the notorious Noye as Kenny, "a perfectly pleasant man" - she left in 1993 to open Beiderbecks restaurant in Darlington with her partner.

"I was on holiday, in a super bar in Greece, and thought that I could do that. We had some money, I'd eaten my way around the North-East and been brought up on Betty's fat rascals, so decided to give it a go."

Beiderbecks flourished, became one of the region's first Internet cafes - "people said it would never last, we were too far ahead of our time" - but crashed when the Revenue sought VAT payment of £18,000.

"The official receiver was fabulous," she recalls. "He told me he was the only person who didn't want money off me."

Her brother finally bought the restaurant and sold it for a profit next day. They haven't spoken since.

Amid it all came a call from Brian Park, the celebrated former producer of Coronation Street. The waiter didn't recognise the name - "they were all having to tiptoe round me at the time" - and told him she wasn't there.

Park had had the idea for Bad Girls, heard everywhere - including from the charity Women in Prison - that Wendy might prove a good story consultant, finally spoke to her.

"I was convinced straight away that it would work. I realised what a rich seam there was and that someone like myself could give them what they wanted to hear."

The first series attracted between five and six million viewers, now there are almost twice as many. Videos are in demand all over the world - "I wish I was on a percentage," she says, cheerfully, though she rejected the chance to join the crew full-time.

"It would have been very easy to go London but I don't run away from things. I have been very faithful to my relationships and to my life. I wanted to see it through."

Then she discovered that her partner was involved with a married mother of two - "I thought the least I was entitled to was honesty" - threw her out and suffered six traumatic months as a result.

Mackenzie Thorpe, the Middlesbrough- born artist now in worldwide demand, had been a regular Beiderbecks customer with his wife Susan. She takes over as manager when shortly he embarks with his family for two years in America.

"I could sell anything to anyone but Mackenzie's work sells itself. He had 172 originals at an exhibition in Birmingham and every one sold within half an hour. The crowd was fantastic, it was like Liverpool being at home."

She will continue with Bad Girls, expects it to run and run - "the sets are stunning and we're doing a series without Ross Kemp, John Thaw and Sarah Lancashire, we must be doing something right" - but if asked to choose between Richmond and London would unquestionably stay in the North.

Between Richmond and a job at Liverpool FC? "Well, that would be different."

She now lives - alone with her three dogs - in a converted cowshed in Richmond. "Whichever way I look is grass, and beyond that the castle.

"I can't believe that I have the peace of mind, the comforts and the joy that I have now. I'm excited, I'm driven and I'm very happy. It's amazing, isn't it, how things turn out in the end."

FRED Hurrell, the former Durham Advertiser editor who died on Tuesday, was everything his obituarist observed - gentle, scholarly, incisive and a very nice man. He was also exceptionally perceptive - which explains why when a nervous 18-year-old school leaver from Shildon came to Durham for interview, Fred turned him down flat.

MORE outpourings from the sauce boat, this time a lament for Hammond's Thin Yorkshire Relish from Tom Musgrave in Hunwick, near Bishop Auckland. First made in 1837, it could be traced back - said the label - to 1377, and the reign of Richard II.

Now 73, Tom was brought up on the stuff - thick and thin, it might be said. "My grandfather always had it with his Yorkshire puddings, eaten separately from the rest of the meal."

Tom's last bottle, the empty still treasured, was bought from Chittock's in Bishop, who sell carlins, too. Unable thereafter to find it - "to my palate, a much more subtle flavour than Worcestershire sauce, since the relish didn't contain anchovies" - he contacted Hammond's through the address on a bottle of Chop Sauce. Now part of the Unigate empire, they've upped and offed to Lancashire. Due to falling sales, they said, Tom's treat had been discontinued. Hammond's chopped. He'd love one more time to savour the relish. "If readers know of any remaining stocks," he writes, "I would be grateful to hear from them."

....and finally, an intriguing mathematical teaser from St Andrew's parish newsletter in Sadberge, near Darlington - said only to work in the year 2001. The church relates it to chocolate, though equally familiar temptations may also apply.

1. Pick the number of times a week you would like to have chocolate. (Try for more than once, but less than ten.)

2. Multiply the number by two.

3. Add five.

4. Multiply this by 50.

5. If you've already had your birthday this year add 1751; if not add 1750.

6. Take away the four digit year in which you were born.

7. A three digit number should remain. The first is your original number - the chocolate factor - the next two numbers are your age.

If we work as well as that little tinker does, the column will return next week.