Shane: We’ll adopt No6
My own place in the sun... a Post Office in Croydon Ex-EastEnders star yearning for another baby
DAD-OF-FIVE Shane Richie is planning to adopt a baby.
The 53-year-old ex-EastEnders star and wife Christie Goddard already have three children – and Shane has two sons from his marriage to Loose Women’s Coleen Nolan.
But the actor revealed: “All I’ve known is sleepless nights and nappies, but we are talking about adopting. Christie wants to. She’s a great mum. We could have more children of our own, but I think because of that it’s like, ‘why don’t we adopt?’. We may foster, but because our children are six, nine and 11 we might get a baby.”
Shane, who played Alfie Moon on the Cockney soap, has had time to mull it over as he takes a break from acting and relaunches his singing career.
His new album A Country Soul includes Shut Up (All I Want Is You) – a song about A PLACE in the Sun host Laura Hamilton has found her own dream property – a Croydon post office. The TV presenter learned her local branch was set to close when the couple who had run it for 19 years asked her advice on retiring abroad.
Laura, who helps Brits relocate on the hit Channel 4 show, assisted Mike and Jill Marsh in moving to Portugal. But customers of the PO in Purley, South London, were devastated by its closure – so Laura, 35, and husband Alex Goward, 36, took it on themselves.
Laura trained as a postmistress and the couple spent £500,000 renovating the premises in Purley, South London.
It now doubles as an upmarket coffee shop named Lord Roberts on the Green and fans are stunned when Laura jumps behind the counter to sell them stamps.
She said: “You never know where life is going to take you. Who would have thought I’d end up as a postmistress?
“My husband said I was crazy when I said I wanted to save the post office but it was so important to the community.
“On the day we opened, our first customer told us she’d got up at 4am to travel down from Yorkshire because she was a big fan of A Place in the Sun.”
The former Dancing on Ice star, mum to Rocco, three, and Tahlia, two, juggles running the shop with her presenting duties on the property show.
She works on location for around two weeks every month and takes the children with her, although they are looked after by a nanny during the day.
While the PO is a joint venture with Alex – who she met through Facebook in its infancy – she admitted they could not work together full-time, laughing: “We’d drive each other mad!” ■■Any shop owner celeb interested in running a PO from their business should visit runapostoffice.co.uk Christie – with son Jake Roche, 25, on backing vocals.
Actress Christie, 38, stuck by Shane even when he admitted a sixyear affair with fan Alison Hall. Shane says he has urged his older sons to shun fame as “it’s the worst kind of drug”. He said: “First and foremost I’m a dad, my most important job. I taught them at an early age there is a big difference between fame and success.
“I did my first TV show at 17 and someone called me a celebrity, it was a badge of honour.
“To be called a celebrity now feels like a dirty word.”
Jake, frontman of rock band Rixton, was at his dad’s album launch at London’s Bag O’ Nails bar. He said: “I feel like this is the closest we have ever been.”