The real Bridget Jones

The inauspicious start of Bridget Jones's Diary? Not quite, but it could document the trials and tribulations of countless 30-something women living their wilderness years in the single lane. Journalist-turned-author Helen Fielding struck a chord when she wrote the original day-to-day account of a fictional woman trying to cope with the rigours of being single, when all around her are finding life partners.

The newspaper column and book rang true for a generation of anxious women who had woken up alone after their 20s to the loud tick-tocking of their biological clock. And now cinema has breathed life into 'Bridge,' the scatty fatty who just can't lay her hands on Mr Right.

But are women who are 30 and 'still looking' really as neurotic as their loveable celluloid counterpart?

North-East singleton Edith Gibson says she has gone through periods of worry that she'll end up on the shelf. Like Sloaney Bridget, she likes expensive wines, good food and the wrong kind of men. She spent years working in London, frequenting swanky bars and bumping into celebrities on a night out.

"I've always enjoyed going to glamorous places and I've got expensive tastes, says Edith, 30, from Boldon, Tyne and Wear. "As far as being on my own goes, I used to fret in my late 20s about the fact that I might still be single in my 30s. It's that awful build up to the big three-O.

"Even now in the back of my mind, I do have this thought that in five years I'll be 35 and what if I haven't met anyone and had children by then. But then again, I know people who have had children in their 40s which always makes you feel better."

Like Bridget's roguish boss played by Hugh Grant, Edith thought she'd met the man of her dreams before it went pear-shaped after six years.

"I'd come out of a long-term relationship with my ex-fiance three years ago and I really wanted to find Mr Right," adds the marketing manager, who works for the hotel group Kingslodge Leisure Limited, in Meadowfields, County Durham.

"And it didn't help that some people actually asked me what was wrong with me just because I was alone. It made me feel like I was abnormal."

She thinks part of the problem of finding the perfect partner in your 30s is that you get more picky as you grow older. "It's got harder for me to find the perfect partner because I don't want to settle for just anyone. And I'm now looking for a nice man rather than the usual unreliable sort.

"It's awful when you go out to a bar and find you're either chatted up by teenagers or older married men. There's just nothing in between. It makes you think all the 30-something men have been taken!"

And while Bridget has Shazza and Jude to ring up, even in the wee hours of the night, after yet another emotional crisis, Edith documents the juicy details of her life to her own circle of 'phone' friends.

"I lived and worked in London until three years ago and I've got loads of friends down there who aren't married and we're really close. I'll tell them everything that's going on in my life and they'll do the same. And it makes it more exciting to tell them when I've been chatted up or asked out."

But far from drowning her sorrows over a bottle of Chardonnay on her own, she's out enjoying a hectic social life these days.

"I love dance and used to teach it when I was younger so I joined a Salsa dance club and I'm also learning to hang-glide. The way I see it, I'm keeping busy and I may end up meeting someone with the same interests as me - mind you, I haven't met anyone so far."

Edith says she recognises some of her own characteristics in Bridget - when the Champion of the Singleton's walks out of her job and takes on the job at a TV station totally unprepared, Edith says she's been there too.

While she was in her early 20s, she took off to visit a mate in Thailand - and ended up with a job on Thai TV for three years. "I love doing adventurous things and travelling a lot. It must be the Sagittarius in me.

"I was working as a manager in an Italian caf, that led on to modelling and TV work as an extra when I got a part on a Thai comedy programme working with the most famous Thai comedian. But when I arrived on set the first day of filming, they gave me a script in Thai and told me I had 15-minutes to learn the lines for about six different scenes. I was dumbstruck because I couldn't read, speak or understand Thai very well. I eventually asked another Thai actress to read it out so I could re-write it in English. I got away with it though and it was a great experience. They thought I was wonderful, but it was all so bizarre."

As far as being a real Bridget Jones goes, Edith does have some fellow feeling for the haphazard character and says Bridget embodies many anxieties of women of the age.

"If truth be told, a lot of women do spend time worrying about their weight and what size their bum is - and whether they'll end up alone."

Though she's bemoaned being single in times gone by, she's not stressing about it now. "I go through stages of being happy and sad about being single and at the moment, I feel good about being on my own. The way I see it, you're either going to meet someone or you're not. Being neurotic about it isn't going to change anything so it's better to enjoy being single"

Having said that, she wouldn't say no to Hugh Grant if he came along and swept her off her feet, but like Bridget, she's learnt to go for the nice guy by now, so she'll happily settle for Colin Firth if he happens to be passing.

l Bridget Jones's Diary (15) is in cinemas around the region from toda