THIS time last year Cheryl Fergison was like any other EastEnders fan, looking forward to settling down on the sofa with a nice cup of tea to catch up with the latest goings on in Albert Square.

But then the actress, who had previously only had bit parts in shows like Casualty and Bad Girls, landed her dream role.

Since June 2007 she's been playing Heather Trott, and still gushes when she remembers the first time she walked into the legendary Queen Vic.

"It was the most amazing thing, a pinching myself moment," she says. "I've watched EastEnders since day one, and now I'm in it!

"On my first day I went out into the Square in my lunch hour and sat on Arthur's bench. I had a little chat with my Mum, who has passed away, and I said, `You would have been so proud'. She would have been - she was an avid EastEnders fan. I said, `I know you're looking down. This is the best day'."

Scam

While at first Cheryl, 43, didn't have any huge storylines to sink her teeth into, in recent weeks that has all changed, thanks to a scam her character Heather and `fiance' Minty are pulling.

Minty and his ex, Hazel, originally entered a magazine wedding competition, but when she pulled out and did a runner from Walford, Heather stepped into her shoes - thinking that the money she might win would go some way to persuading Garry, the object of her affections, she was the woman of his dreams.

She said: "She thought that if Garry didn't want her the way she is, she'd get him by having some sort of plastic surgery done, she was going to use her money for that."

However, eventually Heather came to the realisation she was never going to get her man, whatever she did, while Minty had lost all hope that he and Hazel would ever make a go of things.

The hapless pair decided to go ahead with the fake wedding anyway, just to make themselves a bit of cash, but a few weeks ago Heather began to develop feelings for her bridegroom-to-be.

"Minty has become Heather's hero, and she's fallen hook line and sinker for him," says Cheryl. "He's helped her stand up to her mum, and they have a lot of things in common."

Comes clean

After a hen night which involves a terrible George Michael impersonator, Heather finally comes clean to her best mate Shirley about her love for Minty.

"She says she can't marry him if he doesn't know that she loves him, so they go looking for him, without much success," Cheryl explains. "The next morning, the day of the wedding, she runs around the Square trying to find Minty, dressed in her nightie and face pack, and then Hazel reappears."

Whether Minty ends up marrying Heather, Hazel or nobody at all is a closely-guarded secret that Cheryl's not giving away, but she says the last few weeks of filming have been thoroughly enjoyable hard work.

"It's been a real rollercoaster of emotions," she says. "I was laughing and in my most happy element, and then the next minute I would be in tears.

"I tried not to take it home with me," she continues, "but it was hard for a while to get it out of my system. A lot of the storyline is about rejection, and it's difficult to film those scenes all the time.

"I was shattered, but it's a great opportunity. Any soap is the most amazing chance for an actor to do so much stuff. You can go through your whole career and not do as much as you would in six months of a soap."

Life has certainly changed for Cheryl since becoming a Walford regular. Getting recognised is now a daily occurrence, something both Cheryl and her family have had to get used to.

Council estate

She said: "I have a son who is eight and I'm married. We live on a council estate and we haven't moved or anything, because we've really tried as best we can to keep things normal.

"However if we go on a family day out, after about an hour people tend to start coming up.

"A lot of children recognise me before their parents do. If I'm walking around the supermarket the kids will tug their mum and say, `Look! There's Heather!' I think they have an affinity with her in some ways.

"When I go to Asda now, it takes me two and a half hours to get round, so I leave my freezer shopping until last. I learnt that the first time I went shopping when I was in EastEnders because it all defrosted!"

Not that she's complaining. Cheryl says that the reaction she gets from viewers is generally nice because people have a lot of sympathy for Heather.

"She's a real tragi-comic character, and everybody wants to see her live happily ever after," she laughs. "When people come up to me on the street they want to cuddle me or pair me off with their uncles!

"I think people also like the fact she's normal and we haven't seen that for a long time in soaps. It's great because you've got Hollyoaks, full of lovely looking ladies, tiny blondes, and all the different aged characters in Corrie, but people come up to me and say, `It's really nice to have a real woman on telly."'

Heather is often the butt of `sizeist' jokes and hurtful remarks, but Cheryl insists she doesn't find that offensive but a realistic portrayal of how life is.

"A lot of big women and men do get that attitude, and it's about how you deal with it," she says. "You have to portray it, as long as you can redress the balance in some way at some point.

"That didn't happen straight away and people said to me, `Oh my God, she's just the fat person they take the mickey out of'.

"That was initially what happened, but now we have this Minty thing. Not in a million years would you have put those two together, but now people are rooting for them.

"It's about taking away what Heather looks like, taking away the layers and finding out what she is like underneath. I think that's what EastEnders is doing, and that's a good thing."