A STRANGE incident involving an imposter inspired a former dancer from St Athan to pen her star-studded autobiography.

During her time as tiller girl in the late 1950s and early 1960s - and later as a showbiz agent - Pat Stewart worked with such entertainment industry giants as Laurel and Hardy, Benny Hill and Morecambe and Wise in the heydays of their careers

On top of the fact that she is also the wife of the late Welsh stand-up comic Johnny Stewart you would think Mrs Stewart already had enough good reason to write her life story. However, it was a bizarre incident in which an imposter claiming to be Mrs Stewart appeared in a One Show segment on the BBC which was the impetus behind the St Athan great grandmother's decision to write her book The Girl in the Spotty Dress.

Mrs Stewart, a mother of three, couldn't believe her eyes when she saw a woman on the television claiming to be the girl in the spotty dress captured in the now iconic Bert Hardy photograph of two women on the Blackpool seafront. This was because the girl was actually her.

When Mrs Stewart, 82, spoke out about the imposter the scandal made the national news and ultimately gave the former dancer the idea of writing her life story.

Sitting down at her computer she began writing everyday, capturing memories of her glittering career from her early family life with a coal miner-slash-prizefighter father, to her beginnings as a tiller girl, to her many, many showbiz encounters, a meeting with the notorious Kray twins and even a time when she was stranded in Africa dancing for her supper.

Her book The Girl in the Spotty Dress was picked up by publishers John Blake and is now available from all good bookstores and online retailers.

Reflecting on the writing of her book, which took around two years to write, Mrs Stewart said: "I loved writing it. In fact when I was finished I said to my daughter 'I'm so sad'. I didn't know what to do with myself.

"When the publishers became involved I had to get the word count up. They gave me a ghostwriter to help and she started pulling all of these memories out of me.

"This book became like my fourth baby. When they sent the printed version to me I couldn't look at it at first because, what if it is dreadful, you know?

"But I picked it up and I laughed, I cried, I couldn't put it down."

The Girl in the Spotty Dress by Pat Stewart with Veronica Clark is out now, published by John Blake Publishing in paperback and priced £7.99