In most ways, Janey Godley is pretty much like other stand-up comedians. She has that expected air of battle-worn wordliness about her, partly a legacy of years spent managing a bar in the Calton area of Glasgow.

The Eastender is also a little louder than most people, with one-liners thrown out the way other people throw back a cold drink on a hot day.

And, of course, like most professional comics, Janey gets her raw material by throwing an empty bucket down the well of experience. But her personal well is far deeper than most - and considerably darker. Janey has had to deal with the horror, as a child, of being systematically abused by a relative and the trauma of a childhood road accident. She has also had to come to terms with the murder of her mother.

But, somehow, the 42 year-old's natural resilience has seen her not only survive, but take positives from her harrowing experiences and talk about them on the comedy stage.

And it's this ability to find humour in the horror that has now seen top UK publishers Random House asking Janey to write her autobiography.

The result - Handstands In The Dark - will be published next year.

Janey, one of the stars at this year's Glasgow International Comedy Festival, is frank as she discusses how she took those darkest moments and turned them around.
"I was abused as a kid from the age of five until twelve," she says matter-of-factly, over coffee in her favourite city cafe.

"My uncle carried out the abuse and he was prosecuted in 1996. Unbelievably, it took me 30 years to get him to trial."

Not surprisingly, Janey had tried to push that experience to the back of her mind. And, like so many others, she was too frightened to tell anyone about the horror she had endured.

But in 1992 she read an article in the Evening Times' sister newspaper, The Herald, which told the story of a rape victim. It opened a locked door in her mind, but Janey was upset by the fact that the female's face was blacked out. The altered photograph, it seems, made her focus on the issue of blame.

"I wondered why this woman should be ashamed when she had done nothing wrong.

"And as I talked this out with people I came to realise that I wasn't to blame, either, for what had happened to me.

"I realised I should prosecute the man who had abused me.

"And, of course, I learned there is no time limit to reporting a crime."

It transpired that the uncle had also been abusing Janey's sister; the sisters had never even shared the dark secret with each other. Janey explains: "He was prosecuted and was sentenced to four years in prison."

"But I don't carry my bitterness around. I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I'm not the poor wee lamb because I was abused, it doesn't define who I am. I don't see myself as a victim."

"I can understand others' reactions to abuse and I accept that. But I actually believe I had a happy childhood and I had great times.

"In one sense I had a much more liberal and free childhood than my daughter, Ashley, who is so protected."

Janey, who now lives in the west end, also manages to be sanguine about the fact she didn't have a mother around for most of her life.

Her mum, Annie, was an alcoholic who was murdered.

"No-one was ever charged with the crime. But what could I do? She was a lost soul. My mum was a failed dancer who felt she could make it if only she danced long enough.

"She was always chasing that dream and I think she paid the price for it."

There are those who believe there aren't too many laughs in Janey's experience. But she argues that it's all down to how you deal with it.

"I've made death, child abuse and domestic violence funny," she says, with a wicked laugh.

"And it can be done. It's all about taking the audience with you."

One journey she takes the audience on - with incredible success - is the tale of being crushed by a car.

"One night, as a kid, I was heading off to the Brownies to take my Road Safety Badge and was knocked down by a car.

"The huge irony is that the car was being driven by a doctor.

"My dad, Jim, actually saw the accident as he came out of Beardmore's steel plant, at first not realising it was me lying on the road. When it dawned on him, he went mental and beat the doctor up, hitting hit him over the heid with his metal lunch-box.

"As a result, the doctor and I were taken to hospital in the same ambulance, while my dad was taken to the police station."

"My ma successfully sued the doctor who had been negligent - the famous Glasgow lawyer Peter McCann acted for me - and she then spent the money. Probably on drink. I certainly never saw it.

"But for me, the worst result of it all was that the Brownies wouldn't let me back in with my arm in a stookie!"

Brushing aside the past, Janey married - happily - gave birth to Ashley and ran a pub in the Calton, where she made the punters laugh.

Five years ago she tried her hand at a Tron Theatre Gong Show. Not only did she survive this terrifying trial by jury - she also made the audience laugh.

Several comedy competitions later, she made her debut as a full-time stand-up at Bar Miro in Glasgow.

Since that time, three years ago, she's gone on to entertain huge audiences in London and on the European comedy club circuit. Meantime, Janey moved on to writing and performing her own one-woman show, Caught In The Act of Being Myself, which resulted in the book deal.

"I thought they were taking the mickey," she says of the offer. "As a comedian you're used to TV people, and the like, promising the world but the offer was absolutely genuine."

At the moment she's taking comedy workshops in Yoker, working with ex-heroin addicts, teaching them to write a play.

"Stand-up is a great confidence booster. It helps with assertiveness, especially for boys who won't do drama."

And, she adds, using the stand-up stage as a confessional is incredibly cathartic.

"If you find the humour you can deal with anything," she says, before recounting yet another bad luck story, which, unlike the others, happens to be funny from the first.

"I was in New Zealand for a comedy festival two years ago and went for a swim in Waiheke beach to pass the time with the beautiful dolphins.

"But, me being me, one of the beautiful dolphins bit me full on the backside, and I had to be taken to hospital.

"Can you believe it? The only person ever to have been hospitalised by Flipper.

"Now, you have to see the funny side of that."