The world still isn’t enough for Sarah...

Sarah Donohue: this wasn’t taken in Delph, by the way...

Martyn meets... former model, former Bond stunt girl, former lots of things - Sarah Donohue
Remember that 1997 James Bond movie “Tomorrow Never Dies”, when our rakish hero investigates the sinking of a British warship in Chinese waters?

The movie features a chase through London in a surging, cresting powerboat with some hair raising sequences - including one where the powerful craft does a sort of handbrake turn at full speed.

The boat was driven by a Delph girl - and here I was, sitting in Uppermill’s Java bar buying her a cup of tea! Like the drink, I was stirred and a bit shaken.

Sarah Donohue is a real Oldhamer, educated at Saddleworth School and Oldham College before taking off for the bright lights of Manchester University then Paris - where she danced at the Moulin Rouge.

“Were you a can-can girl?” I ventured with an eagerness that betrayed my otherwise cultivated cool outward attitude.

The answer was a long story involving a babysitter who used to be a Bluebell Girl. I’ll get to it soon.

Sarah, now 43 and back home after years of travelling the world - most of the time as a powerboat racer - is now dedicated to her latest venture, the Galaxy Girls.

You can watch Galaxy Girls on YouTube powering through a Royal Marines fitness regime in stinking, cloying mud. These aren’t just pretty faces.

“These are the most amazing girls on the planet!” reads the blurb on the calendar, and I’m not about to argue.

Sarah, sitting opposite, is a driven, determined woman. Our conversation had ranged over a fascinating and exciting life many can only dream about. But Sarah is angry. She has been wronged and is plotting revenge. I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of her ire. Again, I’ll come to that in a minute, too.

Sarah is back home and happy to be here: “London is so expensive,” she says. I get the impression she never really wanted to leave Delph.

Not that she left for long.

Sarah started out as a would-be actress with Oldham Theatre Workshop, in the days when founder David Johnson was driving the careers of so many young people.

“He was very, very strict,” confided my glamorous companion. His driven manner, his work ethic, rubbed off on the impressionable teenager from Delph who had joined the company as a 12 year old.

She also excelled at fashion and technology, which she went on to study at university.

“I think it was something from my mother and gran, who were always into dressmaking, but though I enjoyed it I wanted something more after my time with workshop.”

That something more was specifically an Equity card, which back then would mean she could get work as a performer. Such cards were hard to come by, hence Sarah’s six months at the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

“One of my babysitters when I was little was once a Bluebell girl and when I saw an advert in ‘The Stage’ offering auditions, I took some advice and crossed the Channel.”

Sarah loved the life and the glamour of the chorus. My fantasies of her in a low-cut dress doing the high-kicking can-can were dashed, but I have a good imagination.

Six months later she was back in London, now with an Equity card. But fate stepped in. One night in a club in London with friends the actress, who had also been a swimwear and lingerie model for years on the books of legendary page-three girl Linda Lusardi’s agency, was offered a PR job by the bat manager.

She didn’t fancy it but after a holiday and “a ridiculous amount of money for six hours a week” — she took the job.

The club was owned by Texas billionaire Charles Burnett III, who loved powerboat racing.

Sarah was asked to accompany her new boss in a private helicopter to the Lake District to help with the PR for a world speed record attempt on Windermere. Sarah was asked if she would like to race a powerboat: “Charles believed that as the only female powerboat racer I would create some great PR for his club,” she explained.

The answer, obviously, from an Oldham girl trying at that point to get on the stunt register, was an emphatic yes. She was to spend the next 12 years, minus several months out after a huge crash left her hospitalised, traumatised and with platinum plates in her rebuilt face, racing boats around the globe.

She become European champion in 2001 in her class — after her accident — having previously finished third in the Euros at a grand prix in Jesolo outside Venice.

So when the producer of the Bond movie wanted a stunt girl to drive the powerboat, Sarah was the obvious choice.

Is all this glamorous enough? There’s more, much more.

“When the call came from EON Productions at Pinewood Studios about the Bond film I thought it was my friends taking the Mick,” she laughed. Three times she put down the phone. But the Bond guys were persistent.

She trained on a military base close to Pinewood, broke her ribs trying one manoeuvre and had to be strapped in for the hair-raising ride with a stunt-double for Pierce Brosnan in the boat.

That led to other movie work — including “The Tourist” with Angelina Jolie — plus lots of corporate work for DVDs. Life was never dull.

Her all-action lifestyle caught the attention of producers of the Granada-sponsored Men and Motors channel and with a film crew Sarah travelled the world to film and take part in extreme sports. “It was the best job in the world,” she told me.

“Basically we could go anywhere, any time, providing it didn’t cost Granada any money. Airlines and resorts were happy to give us seats and time in return for airtime on the programme.”

She continued powerboat racing, of course, but her hectic life was put on hold after her horrific crash.

“My mum flew out to the hospital in Italy, it was touch and go for a while...”

With her face and body rebuilt and after two years in rehab with the nerves all working again, Sarah returned to racing.

But the golden days were ending. Luckily her time in rehab proved another serendipitous blessing. She now had a taste for health and fitness and took part in a four-day pageant in Texas and then another in Miami.

From 250 entrants demonstrating prowess in dance and gymnastics, assault courses, fitness tests and then bikini and evening-wear parades, Sarah finished fourth. She was hooked.

The superfit competitot went on to win two world titles (working with personal trainer Matt Jarvis, One Direction’s trainer).

And so Sarah was asked to judge a pageant in London. She ended up “furious — the result was fixed!” she claims: “I was so angry, not for myself but for the girls who had put in so much time and effort.”

Sarah was determined to help these girls so founded Miss Galaxy Universe, staging her first show at the NEC Birmingham with Gok Wan’s brother Kwoklyn.

So now the Galaxy Girls consume her time, or very nearly. She is involved in this dispute with the mother of one of the former competitors and it could turn nasty.

I listened as the intensity poured out. I’m glad I’m not on the wrong end of all that energy and passion.

Welcome home, Sarah. Though Delph will probably never be the same again.