TV Quick (South) - 13 - 19 July 2002. Issue 29
I still
speak to my dead sister
The
future looks good for actress Jan Anderson. She has a part in
the new series of London's Burning and a new man in her life.
Despite this, the tragic death of her beloved sister Ruth is
still never far from her mind...
For a woman who's supposed to be nursing a broken heart, Jan Anderson looks surprisingly happy. Flashing a dazzling smile, she oozes sex appeal and every head turns when she strolls through the lobby of a hotel in Cardiff.
The reason for the former Casualty star's cheerful mood soon becomes clear. She isn't heartbroken at all. Her relationship with former British and European Super - Middleweight boxing champion Dean Francis may be over, but she's now in love with a new man.
They've been together for a couple of months, but she would sooner not say any more, other than that she is 'happy and cool'.
Clearly this woman doesn't hang about. 'Of course it's upsetting when a relationship ends,' says Jan, 28, who joins the new series of London's Burning this week as station cook Lisa Hill. 'But you have to look at the bigger picture. I split with Dean quite a while ago and it was a mutual thing. We're still really good friends. We had a brilliant, intense relationship, but I wasn't ready to settle down.
'When I'm in a relationship, I'm an all - or - nothing person. I couldn't give it my all because I had so much going on in my life. When you're young, I don't think there's anything wrong with spending some time with someone then moving on. There's nothing to be heartbroken about, you just move on.'
Jan's romance with Dean hit the headlines when it was revelaed that he'd been jailed for two years following a fight outside a fast - food restaurant in Basingstoke.
He was branded a thug, but Jan says he couldn't be more different. 'He's a bundle of fluff, there's absolutely no violent streak in him. Those guys started on him and because he was a boxer and stuck up for himself they made out he was a thug. It was totally self - defense.'
Dean may have been a diamond but Jan readily admits that she's had her share of rocky relationships. 'I sometimes wonder if I'm the way I am in relationships because my dad wasn't around when I was growing up,' says Jan, whose parents split when she was young. 'I expect a man to do things for me in a way that my dad wasn't there for my mum.'
One relationship ended when a man she dated for two years cheated on her with an unmarried mother of two. 'I'm so grateful I didn't end up with him. The reason I was with someone like that was because I was in a bad way because my sister had just died. I was holding on to the wrong person because he'd been there and I wouldn't let that go.'
Losing her older sister Ruth, who commited suicide in 1997, threw her life into turmoil. Jan relied on her for friendship, support and advice.
'Everyone went to Ruth with their problems,' she says. 'She was a writer, a creative and spiritual person, like a therapist. I'm not just putting her on a pedestal because she's dead, but she was so good to so many people. She helped me through so much in life.
'My mum and I knew that she was mentally ill, but she was so intelligent and had moments of complete clarity. Then she'd go off the rails. It was heartbreaking. I knew my sister wouldn't have killed herself if she thought there was any way of getting through it.
'I've got a lot of respect for her. It must have taken a lot of guts to do what she did.'
Although she admits she'll never get over the loss and thinks about her sister every day, Jan has an amazing capacity to make the best of life and move on. It's partly the way she was raised to be self - sufficient by her mum after her parents divorced. She's also a practising Buddhist and has visited spiritualists who, she says, have put her in touch with her sister and her father, who died 16 years ago.
'I believei in life after death and I know my sister's still with me, but in a different place. I know there's more to life than this. I have absolute proof that a conversation has taken place between me and my sister and my dad through someone else. It's happened loads of times.'
One of the most startling incidents happened when Jan was passing a spiritualist church and noticed a meeting was about to start. She went in a immediately the speaker singled her out and said he had messages for her.
'He was telling me really intimate details about things my sister and I had done. It was obvious my sister was trying to give me proof. The speaker was saying things like, "Do you remember the time when dyed all my clothes yellow in the washing machine?" It was amazing. I was crying my eyes out with happiness.'
Jan tries to remain positive . 'What I'm really sad about is that me and Ruth won't grow old together. I imagined us in a big house some day. Once a year on her anniversary I get myself into a right state, but now I'm in control of it. I miss her so much, but I'm living my life for both of us now.'
