Talented Ysabel Collyer lost the power of speech after a horrifying car crash.

But now she has made her professional acting debut after spending years painstakingly rebuilding her shattered life.

Ysabel, 25, of Bradford Road, Shipley, was only 12 when she nearly died in the head-on smash.

Her aunt and uncle were killed when their car swerved into the path of an armoured truck on their way back from a visit to Canterbury Cathedral.

Ysabel suffered multiple fractures, brain damage and a ruptured spleen in the accident and was in a deep coma for six weeks.

But her remarkable recovery has been such that she completed a three-year drama degree course last summer.

And last night she stepped on to the stage at the Alhambra Studio for the first time in a challenging new production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men.

"It affected my whole life in that it made me sit up and take a new look at the world and really appreciate it," Ysabel said about the crash and its after-effects.

"When I was a younger I was a little bit lazy at school and I was really quiet and shy. I might never have fulfilled my potential if it hadn't been for the accident."

For months after the crash, it was thought she would never recover fully but she gradually re-learnt how to speak and walk before getting the acting bug when she completed a GCSE in Drama.

Ysabel has vivid memories of the first word she uttered after weeks of being painstakingly taught by another aunt on visits to her in hospital.

"The first weekend I was allowed to go home to my parents from being in hospital I was really excited and as I got into the car, my aunt leaned in to say goodbye and I said 'goodbye'," she said.

"It was very slow and disjointed but my dad nearly jumped out of the car and went absolutely crazy. On the way home they taught me how to say 'I love you, Mummy.'"

Doctors thought Ysabel would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life but she taught herself to walk again and now barely considers herself to have a disability.

Last night saw Ysabel making her professional acting debut for the Bradford-based theatre group mind the...gap. She plays Suzy in a production of Of Mice And Men which will go on a national tour until April 13.

Among the actresses who have helped to inspire Ysabel are Barbara Stanwyck and Judy Garland.

They are two of her character Suzy's idols in Of Mice And Men and she researched some of their famous roles for the part.

"It's very exciting getting a part like this. I was nervous but I think nerves are a good thing.

"If you didn't have nerves you would be in a real mess on stage," she said.

"I'd love to make a real career out of acting and I also like writing for radio."

l Of Mice And Men is running at the Alhambra Studio in Great Horton Road, Bradford, from February 11 until February 15. For tickets ring (01274) 752000.

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