Sally Ann Matthews

Sally Ann Matthews was born in Oldham on 19th September, 1970, the daughter of a local headteachers although she lived with her father after her parent's divorce. Although she planned to go to university and train as a speech therapist, she had joined the Oldham Theatre Workshop as a child, appearing in many productions and it was because of the links of the theatre (who also provided Anne Kirkbride, Sally Whittaker and Sean Wilson for Coronation Street) that she successfully auditioned to play the part of paper girl Jenny Bradley and thus bring her father Alan into Rita Fairclough's life. As she was only fifteen at the time she first appeared in the Street in January 1986, she initially combined her acting work with her continuing studies at the Blue Coat School in Oldham.

Jenny was involved in some of the biggest storylines in the programme in the late 1980s and stayed as a regular until March 1991. She returned briefly in September and October 1993 after which she had a lean period acting-wise for television. This ended in 2000 after which she has appeared regularly on television in series such as City Central, Heartbeat, Emmerdale and Doctors. She has also had several stage and radio roles.