AS a lass growing up on a Newcastle council estate, Janet Anderson's holidays consisted of the occasional week camping in the Lake District.

But now the Rossendale and Darwen MP has landed one of the most glamorous jobs in government, which gives her the opportunity to meet the stars and visit top tourist destinations - all in the course of business.

The mother-of-three's appointment as film, tourist and broadcasting minister may have started in a fairly mundane way - a half-hour debate in the Commons on concessionary TV licences the day after she got the job. But things, as they say, can only get better.

Her predecessor Tom Clarke got to visit four film festivals, including Cannes.

He also made it to Robert Redford's Sundance Festival in Utah, Venice, and Dinard in Brittany.

Mr Clarke also had a trip to Hollywood to promote the value of Britain as a location to studio moguls, attended numerous film premieres and met the Spice Girls on the set of their film SpiceWorld.

And he made two trips to the Far East to promote Britain as a tourist destination - to the opening of Hong Kong Airport and to Thailand and Singapore.

He found out he had lost his job earlier this week while entertaining film star couple Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley on the terrace of the Commons. But Mrs Anderson promises she will not allow all the glamour and glitz to go to her head.

Her early family holidays were spent camping in the Lake District and Devon.

She added: "I also recall having a holiday with my mother at a boarding house in Southsea.

"Now as a family we like to go to Brittany but I have never had a really exotic holiday.

"My best overseas trips were going with a female pal to New York for a weekend to celebrate 40 years of friendship and being taken for a romantic weekend in Paris by my husband Vince for our silver wedding."

And Mrs Anderson said that a key element of her job would be promoting Britain as a tourist destination and film location.

But she added: "In Rossendale I live in one of the most beautiful parts of Britain and I want to promote that and the North West everywhere I go.

"We have the old Weavers' Cottage in Rawtenstall, the Britannia Coconutters, the steam railway from Bury and we've just got £2.8 million of lottery money to refurbish Ilex Mill, which is a key part of our industrial heritage.

"I want to promote areas like East Lancashire as tourist destinations as well as well-known places like the Lake District and Oxford. "We have a huge heritage from the Industrial Revolution, history such as the Pendle Witches and some of the most beautiful countryside in Britain."

She wants to build on successes like the TV programmes All Quite On The Preston Front and Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, which used Darwen as a location, and Juliet Bravo, filmed in Bacup and Burnley.

Admitting there were a few perks to the job - which Mr Clarke said was the best in government - she said: "I can promise people it won't turn my head.

"Constituency surgeries will go on as usual and, despite meeting glamorous film stars, the most important people in my life will be my family and my constituents.

"There's a lot to do in this brief and I'm really looking forward to it."

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