Fern TV guest forced me to kiss him

Lift attack shock after show

CALENDAR Girls star Fern Britton is surrounded by bare flesh on the hit musical, where she acknowledges the male stage hands are always very respectful.

But the former TV presenter, 61, knows this has not always been the case – revealing she was once assaulted in a lift by a man she had just interviewed.

The disturbing incident came when she worked for Television South in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The former This Morning star said: “I remember doing a television show when

I worked for TVS. I was in a lift with a man I’d just interviewed. He suddenly jumped me and started snogging me. I asked him what on earth he thought he was doing. But it didn’t seem to shame him into stopping.

“The fact remains the most privileged person on the planet is still the white male. But unless they can feel as uncom- fortable as single women do walking home at night in the dark or getting into a taxi alone, there’s always going to be that gap in understanding.

“Is the pendulum beginning to swing back in the other direction? Yes, it is.

But there’s still a long way to go.” But Fern has no complaints about her tour in Calendar Girls – based on the true story of a group of WI members who posed nude for charity.

Unlike the rest of the cast, she does not have to strip off.

She said: “The male stagehands at each theatre are so respectful. There are a lot of breasts running around but the boys look the other way.”

Would she have accepted a role that required nudity?

“I would now I’ve seen the way it’s handled. It’s very discreet and very funny.”

Fern Britton’s new novel, The Newcomer, is published in hardback by Harpercollins on March 7,

priced £12.99.

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