HEATHER PEACE. JANUARY 30TH - FEBRUARY 5TH. THE SUN, THE TV MAG.

FLAMING PASSION

LONDON'S BURNING LOVE TRIANGLE HOTS UP FOR HEATHER.

Actress Heather Peace is at the centre of a sizzling love triangle as firefighter Sally Fields on London's Burning.

Sally has the hots for her hunky Blue Watch colleagues Dan and Joe and can't seem to decide which one is right for her. But in real life Heather, 23, lost out in a love triangle of her own when her best mate stole her boyfriend.

She says: "I was devastated. A few months after I went to Drama school, he started seeing my best pal. The worst part of it was my friend breaking my trust - you really don't really expect your mates to do that sort of thing".

Heather had dated her boyfriend for three years after meeting him through her local drama group when she was at school in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

The pair had talked about settling down together and Heather decided to study drama at Manchester Polytechnic because it would only be an hour away from home.

She says: "I was only 18 but I had been going out with him since school." He was five years older than me and I thought it was great because he would pick me up after school in his VW Beetle.

"We used to go sledging and surfing together - it was very innocent but he was my first big love.

"I was young and stupid and just wanted to be a housewife while he went to work in a garage. I would have given up everything for him".

Heather started picking up signs that things were going wrong shortly after she left home.

She says: "It was women's intuition that made me suspicious at first and I started following his tracks.

"It was an awful kind of Jerry Springer Show nightmare when I found out that he had been having an affair with my best friend while he was still seeing me".

After a massive bust - up with the pair of them, Heather threw herself into work at drama school.

Her ex and her pal eventually married and settled down near to her home in Bradford.

She has bumped into them a few times. But wasn't until she saw them together last Christmas that she was able to come to terms with what happened.

She says: "For the first time it felt comfortable. Looking back now, I suppose it would have been worse if they had just had an affair.

"But they got married and they are really happy, so now I look as it as just fate, something that was meant to happen.

"I think he probably wanted to let me go, so our relationship would eventually have ended anyway.

"What happened forced me to grow up and, as a result, I have had a lot more experiences than what I would have had if I had stayed with him".

Since joining London's Burning last September, Heather's character Sally has won the hearts of both of her fellow new recruits Dan ( Brad Gorton) and Joe ( Jim Alexander). She ended up sleeping with Dan after they got tipsy at the drink - up for their dead collegue Nick.

But since then, she has found herself cooling towards him and this week she agrees to go out with Joe.

Heather, who has no boyfriend at the moment, says she has never been tempted to cheat on anyone because she is a terrible liar.

She says: " I couldn't do it because I wouldn't get away with it.

"Everyone seems to think that because I am an actress, I should be really good at lying. But anyone who knows me can tell if I try to fib.

"My Mum always told me as a kid that if I did something wrong and lied about it, I would be in twice as much trouble. I think it has stuck with me.

"I'm not the sort who can just meet anyone in a nightclub and get together with him immediately. I prefer to get to know them slowly. But there is no one serious around at the moment".

Not having a boyfriend doesn't stop Heather having fun, however, and she can often can be seen out on the town with her London's Burning love rivals Brad and Jim.

She says: "they're lovely lads and I can recommend them to other girls. But I would never go out with either of them because I know them too well.

"We often go out and have a few drinks together, Luckily, the action between us on screen doesn't go much further than snogging.

"A lot of kids watch London's Burning so we can't do any ranchy stuff. " That's a relief because the one time I had to strip down to my bra, everyone turned up to have a look! There were members of the crew on set that I had never even seen before - it was so embarrassing".

Heather got her first big TV break playing school teacher Sally Cullen in Emmerdale.

She landed her audition for London's Burning after a casting director was impressed by her performance as a car thief in The Bill.

After working hard for the last nine months, she is about to set off for a four - week holiday in Australia before London's Burning starts filming again.

But she will pack plenty of sunblock because the show's bosses have ordered her not to get a tan.

Heather says: "They reckon it would look odd. But in any case the sun gives me freckles in my nose and they always look like acne on screen!".

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