Vicky Meyers, who plays policewoman Lisa Swain, has seen her acting dreams come true – but it’s been a rocky road to get here, from financial hardship to battling skin cancer

She has been in the acting game for 28 years now, but Vicky Meyers – who plays straight-talking detective Lisa Swain on Coronation Street, it has been quite a journey. Not only has the 48 year old had her money struggles in the past as a jobbing actress as she tried to raise her daughter who she had at just 20, she has had some terrifying health issues to contend with.

Vicky, who is now single, was married and had a baby daughter at 20 – and with daughter Meghan, now 27, just four months old, she called an agency she found in the Yellow Pages, landing a job as an extra on Corrie, before roles in other shows led her to rise through the ranks and eventually bag her now permanent job on the cobbles. But her career path, as reports OK!, was set off course when in 2010 a malignant melanoma was discovered on her calf, which led her to undergo treatment and reconstructive surgery.

Speaking previously about her shock skin cancer diagnosis, Vicky told the Mirror: “When my husband and I split up, I was quite down, bitter and vengeful, and when I was told I had [cancer], I remember thinking, ‘If this is it for me, I’ve missed out on all this time with my daughter and I haven’t really been the best person that I wanted to be’. She added: “The diagnosis re-centred me and made me focus on what is really important and what makes me happy. Now, every time I go into work and see the Coronation Street sign, it’s quite overwhelming.”

Recalling how it came about, she said: “My nephew has a heart condition. As we turned to leave, the doctor said, ‘Can I have a look at that mark on your leg?’ Within five days, I was in hospital. I was wearing three-quarter length combat trousers that day. You can roll them up into shorts, which I did in the car just before the appointment, because it was a really hot June day. “It’s quite incredible to think that if it had been a miserable day, the doctor would never have seen the little dark mark on my calf. I definitely had an angel watching over me that day.”

Vicky and her daughter Meghan, who is now 27 (Image: Vicky Myers/instagram)

By 2013, as regular casting rejections, a tough divorce and the financial strain of being a single mum took their toll, she took a two-year break from acting, in work in an office at a casting house. “But I never gave up on my dream of being an actor,” Vicky insists. “There were times when it was really hard and there were days when I said, ‘I just can’t do it, it isn’t practical.’ But I always believed in myself and knew that it would happen one day – I never lost sight of that.”

Given her past struggles, Vicky says she prefers living in the moment to making resolutions: “I don’t believe in them. Your life can change at any moment and you don’t need one day to define the rest of your year. My only plan for the New Year is work. I’m incredibly happy and I’d like it to stay that way.” She adds: “The cancer diagnosis was horrible, but it’s important not to trip over something you’ve left behind. Just keep going, keep moving forward.”