I was Spuggy in Byker Grove until I was axed for shocking reason… now I earn £14 an hour after massive career change

SHE was known to millions as flame-haired Spuggy – and actress Lyndyann Barrass says she’s still mates with her Byker Grove co-stars Ant and Dec.

Earlier this month The Celeb Report revealed the Geordie duo are bringing back the classic 90s show, 17 years after it was last seen on our screens.

The boss of the production company has hinted Ant and Dec – who used their character names PJ & Duncan to launch a pop career – may make a surprise return.

Speaking to The Celeb Report, Lyndyann – now 47 and living in Sunderland – admits she’d love a cameo in the reboot, and has already texted pal Dec to say so.

She says: “I think another Byker Grove would be successful and I’d go back in a heartbeat, but obviously they’d need to stream it and it would need to appeal to a generation who are more into TikTok.” 

Lyndyann was written out of Byker Grove aged 16 – something she believes was down to her contract.

She says: “I think by 16 you have to go on a higher pay bracket, and they couldn’t suddenly have everyone turning 16 on that sort of money.”

Lyndyann formed a friendship with Declan Donnelly in 1989 after he was cast alongside her on the show, set in a youth club in the Byker area of Newcastle.

She recalls: “We were just always around each other and always got on.

“I called him ‘Deccie poos’ which really irritated him but we had a lot of fun.

“I had to punch him in one scene where he messed up my flower patch at the youth club. I remember we were laughing about it, and he was saying, ‘Go easy on me!’.

“If we weren’t being schooled or filming, there was a holding room where we’d play pool together.

“He was so cute. I definitely fancied him but I wasn’t the sort to have ever said anything like that. There was this instant chemistry between all the cast.”

A year later Ant McPartlin joined as PJ, and TV’s most popular duo was born.

Sweet gesture

Lyndyann tells us she was touched four years ago when Ant and Dec sent a special gift from the I’m A Celeb jungle to her daughter when she fell ill.

She confided in them after Scarlette, now 16, underwent emergency surgery for a life-threatening condition when she was 12. 

“Scarlette had hydrocephalus which is a build-up of fluid on the brain,” she explains.

“She’d had it before but this second time was more serious. I didn’t think she was going to survive.

“The doctor told me she had a total blockage on her brain so she needed to have emergency surgery.

“My daughter asked me, ‘Am I going to die?’ and that was horrific.

“Fortunately the surgery worked and she was OK, but when I’m A Celeb started up I sent Declan a few messages, telling him about it.

“I said that she’d been through a lot. The next thing I knew a Parcelforce delivery arrived with something in a jiffy bag. 

“When Scarlette opened it she was pretty much in floods of tears. It was a star from one of the Bushtucker trials, signed to her from Ant and Declan on the back.

“She’s their biggest fan. She just kept screaming ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’.

“She keeps it on a mirror in her bedroom now. To do that for my daughter really lifted her spirits and meant so much to us all.

“They’re just two normal Northern lads who haven’t lost touch with their roots.”

Recalling their Byker days, Lyndyann says: “We used to go and eat at an Italian restaurant in Newcastle and downstairs there was a dancefloor, so we’d all end up in there.

“The boys didn’t have lots of girls coming over to them – it just wasn’t like that back then.”

The cast – including Donna Air, who played Charlie Charlton, Jill Halfpenny, who played Nicola Dobson, and Sally McQuillan, who played Donna Bell – also enjoyed camping trips.

She said: “We’d go to places in Northumberland, like Rothbury.

“Most of the cast would go and we’d have adult chaperones from the set because we were all so young.

“We weren’t especially adventurous. None of us were very Bear Grylls. 

“I remember there was really heavy rain one time and about 15 of us all went and stayed in one tent to get away from it. We were so close and it always felt like that, from day one.

“We were all the same age and our birthdays were one after the other so I’ll still get the odd birthday message. Declan’s is September, Ant’s is October and I’m November.

“Ant and Declan are among my oldest mates. It’s lovely that Declan and I can still message.”

Career change

After leaving Byker Grove Lyndyann continued to do bits of TV work and even joined a girl band, Angel, but changed career after starting a family.

She married childhood sweetheart Allan Power and they share two children – Joe, now 21, and Scarlette.

When they divorced she worked in a bank call centre, but Lyndyann now runs Dusty Springclean, a house cleaning firm with two staff.

She’d not long launched her business when the Covid pandemic struck and Britain entered lockdown.

She recently posted a polite notice on the firm’s Facebook page saying her hourly rate would need to rise to £14 to counter the effects of the cost of living crisis.

Lyndyann says: “I had just moved into my new house and things were going well, but when the pandemic struck everything stopped and as I’d only had the business a year at that point I qualified for no help.

“We had to live on the savings I had set aside to do up the house. It was tough but I also enjoyed the time at home with my kids. They’re the most important thing to me.

“I’m so proud of them both. Joe has qualified as a plumber and Scarlette is a really talented goalkeeper and is in Sunderland‘s academy, which is where four of the England Lionesses squad started out.

“They’re getting older now but I always want to be home from work to make their tea and I love that life.”

Even now Lyndyann still gets recognised as Spuggy – and insists she doesn’t waste her time by thinking about ‘what if’.

“I was cleaning a client’s home only yesterday and she had the district nurse in. I could see her looking at me and then she started to ask… ‘Are you…?'” she said recently.

“I had to laugh and just say, ‘Yes, that’s me – Spuggy.’ I will always love the character and appreciate how much she meant to all those people who watched the show.”