In 1972, I had my 21st birthday, and I celebrated it in St Andrews, because I was working at the Byre Theatre. I was there for an eight-month rep season, where we'd do a new play every fortnight.

We worked from 10am to 11pm, six days a week. Every other Saturday night, we'd take the set down and, next day, start painting the new one. I didn't sew the costumes, because I was crap at it, but somebody did, as we prepared for our next show. On the Sunday afternoon, we'd also be learning our lines, ahead of the next performance two days afterwards. As you can imagine, it was absolutely full-on and great fun.

All for £18 per week. I just loved it. It was one of the happiest times of my life. My parents would come up to see the last show of one production and the first show of the next, and every get-out, when we took the set down, they'd buy fish and chips for everyone.

I had been fortunate in being accepted at Rada at the age of 17, and was out at 19. So, by the time St Andrews came along, I had already done two years' performing, including at the BBC, and also at theatres in Harrogate and Coventry.

I had been recommended to the then director at the Byre Theatre, Andrew Tourell. I messed up at the audition, the only time in my life that I have dried up. I completely forgot my lines, but they still took me on.

My agent didn't want me to do it, nor did my parents. Everyone thought I was jeopardising my career by being so far away from London. But it proved such a brilliant learning curve. There's nothing that beats doing it for learning and learning by doing it.

You know, I am not sure I even knew where St Andrews was before I arrived there with my suitcase, excited by the parts that were being offered. I really did arrive with just the one suitcase.

My then boyfriend drove me up in his car via a very lazy wending way through the Lake District, as a holiday together. We are still close, but within a few months of my arriving in St Andrews, the relationship was over; it was too difficult to keep going, him in Essex, me in Scotland. There's no shortage of romantic opportunities in a rep company.

For the first couple of weeks, I just slept on somebody's sofa, and then this wonderful little flat became available. It was the flat above where I had been staying. It had one bedroom, but I and my flatmate - one of the other actresses, Adrienne Burgess - turned the living room into a second bedroom. It became two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.

Adrienne is still one of my best friends. She said I would become as much, all those years ago, because I was one of the few people who would put up with her cats, which stank the place out. Adrienne could cook, though. I wasn't great in the kitchen. I am a good cook now, but then I could hardly boil an egg. I lived off Adrienne's brilliant cooking, Mars bars and raw vegetables.

On my 21st, I was playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie, and I still have the little glass unicorn, which is symbolic of her. That's a very special memory. Also around that time, I played the mother - which was quite a feat at 21 - in Arthur Miller's All My Sons. I would kill for that part now. I do think Miller's work is on a par with Shakespeare. There would be a lot of very stiff competition.

At that time there was no way I was doing anything other than living out of a suitcase, so there was absolutely no personalising the flat, except plonking my teddy bear somewhere and perhaps having the occasional piece of Victorian lace - I am a big fan of Victoriana, and was back then. The only time I would hold a paint brush would be to help paint the set.

I did, though, buy a little Ariel 3 moped tricycle, which I rode all over the place. You didn't have to wear a crash helmet in those days, and I'd bomb up and down the main street in my floaty frock. I did have visions of riding it to London, but before I got close to trying, the thing died on me. It didn't last at all long.

I remember thinking St Andrews was a very pretty place, but I don't think I appreciated it as much then as I would do now. You'd have the odd drink with a couple of students, but I didn't really spend much time with them. The theatre work was so full-on, there really wasn't much time for exploring further. We would have been a pretty incestuous bunch.

And then, after eight months, just before the season was ending, I was off. I left in the October, partly because I wanted to spend Christmas near my family and partly because all these offers of work came in. Work was plentiful - once, around about that time, I had the choice of 12 jobs - and it would have been foolish not to have chosen one of them.

Louise Jameson, 56, plays Viv Roberts in BBC Scotland’s River City. Her credits include Doctor Who, Tenko and EastEnders. Born in Wanstead, Essex (now London), she presently lives in Kent.

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