EAST Lancashire actress Julie Hesmondhalgh has refused to have her head turned by the bright lights and big bucks that celebrity can bring.

In the final part of out three-part series looking at her life story, she tells DONNA McKENZIE about how she shunned magazine deals in favour of a quiet family wedding.

IT'S NOT unknown for today's celebrities to turn their wedding day into a money-making publicity stunt.

But when Julie Hesmondhalgh tied the knot with Ian Kershaw last June, it was at a £30-a-night hotel in Wales with just a selection of family and friends.

However, the romantic secret wedding was rumbled by one national newspaper - which promptly ran a story about Julie being a druid.

Laughing about it now, six months on, Julie said: "It was all a big secret because we didn't want any press there.

"The thing is, it was a very boring wedding for them so they put some spin on it. The place is called Druidston and so they said I was a druid and it was a druid ceremony on a cliff top.

"It was like, Spendthrift Julie, who earns in excess of two hundred million pounds a year, booked into the £30-a-night hotel and hers was the only room with amenities.

"We gave them an official picture on us on the beach but they also used a massive one of me in a swimming costume with a towel wrapped around me, swigging champagne out of a bottle."

Julie, 33, and husband Ian, who met on the set of Coronation Street during her first week, chose the location as it was the first place they stayed when they got together.

After a service at the cliff top hotel, Julie and Ian raced to the beach where champagne bottles were cooling in a rock pool.

They were joined by 100 guests, including her best woman Connie Hyde, the Haslingden-born actress best know as The Bill's evil PC Cathy Bradshaw who studied with Julie at Accrington and Rossendale College.

When the pair went to drama school their mums, Julie recalls, "left us sobbing in front of a tiny gas fire, drinking hot Ribena, like we were a pair of 12-year-olds."

Familiar faces from Coronation Street also joined them on the beach, which is a regular haunt for Julie and Ian.

She said: "We always go back there. It is a family-run hotel in a place we really love. It is beautiful and in the middle of nowhere.

"When I told the press office about it they asked what the security was like and I just laughed - there aren't even any locks on the bedroom doors. They could have caught me in 'flagrante' on my wedding night if they wanted."

The couple's home life is as down to earth as Julie and includes getting involved in the local mums and toddlers group and competing in the pub quiz.

Home is just outside Manchester in a tiny, two-bedroom terraced cottage but they are about to take part in a celebrity house swap within the village.

In February, Julie, Ian and their daughter Martha will move into the house currently occupied by Tony Booth, Cherie Blair's actor dad.

And Lee Warbuton, who played mechanic Tony Horrocks in Coronation Street and security guard Tony Vincent in Casualty, will then move into the Hesmondhalgh household.

But for the time being, Julie is preparing for a family Christmas at home.

"I'm really looking forward to the festive period. We're going to have a nice family Christmas at home with Lee - he's like our adopted son," she said.

"This will be the first Christmas Martha is old enough to understand what it is all about and it took everything to stop Ian getting the tree in November.

"It's going to be lovely seeing her opening her presents and watching the Christmas telly. We've all got two weeks off this year, which meant doubling up some of the filming during the year to compensate but means a whole fortnight for Christmas."

Martha was delivered by Caesarean section at Tameside Hospital, in Manchester, on October 13 2001.

Julie and Ian had wanted a home birth but because of complications with Martha's size - she was a whopping 10lb 8oz - their plans had to be changed.

Julie said: "Martha is at a lovely age now but she has been the best baby too. She sleeps from eight at night to 9.30 in the morning, it's unbelievable. And she eats well too, which for a Lancashire mum is very important.

"We aren't planning any more children though as we are really happy as we are, we only ever planned to just have Martha."

The two-year-old, who before she was born was kept hidden behind Hayley's infamous red anorak and her sewing machine at Mike Baldwin's factory, now spends four afternoons a week at nursery and the rest of the time at home.

Because of Julie's varying shifts she is able to spend plenty of time with Martha and Ian mainly works from home.

"He has been really busy lately," Julie says "He has a play on at Watford Palace called Get Ken Barlow, which is really funny, and he is doing stuff for the BBC. He is also in two Christmas specials for Fat Friends and Emmerdale."

Despite being one of Britain's best known soap stars, Julie's roots are firmly in East Lancashire and she frequently returns when she is not filming.

One place she always visits on return trips is Maundy Relief, which provides 24-hour care to Hyndburn's needy and homeless. She said: "Maundy has really taken over for me lately, it gets under your skin and you become a bit obsessive with it.

"Part of that is Dorothy McGregor, who runs it, as she's a tiny bundle of goodness. She is the most amazing person I have ever met and I would do anything for her. Maundy Relief is a blueprint for what a charity should be and there should be more places like it."

This year, Julie organised a celebrity auction and cabaret night, which raised an amazing £10,000 for the charity based in Abbey Street. But there are many other aspects of East Lancashire that attract her back.

"My mum and dad live in East Lancashire and I come back all the time," she says. "When I first got the part in Coronation Street I was commuting for a few months then I moved to Manchester. But I go back all the time with Martha and we are regularly at Gatty Park.

"It is really hard to be specific about what I really like best about East Lancashire. I think it is a very beautiful part of the world but not in a picture postcard sense.

"It is very lived-in and industrial such as the hills around Haslingden. It is bleak and wild, and I love that. I also like the beautiful market towns but more than anything it is the people.

"And what I really love, and what is very important, is its multi-culturalism. I love walking through Church and seeing every colour under the sun.

"I feel I owe Accrington a lot as I got so much out of living there. I was lucky to be encouraged and get involved with a lot of things and now I want to put back into it."