Why I'm stripping off again at 56: Erika Roe was the public school girl who lifted her top - and men's hearts - at Twickenham 33 years ago. Now a haunting tragedy has inspired her to do it again, wrinkles and all

• Erika Roe ran across pitch topless during England Australia game in 1982
• The well brought up 24-year-old saw buxom breasts achieve national fame
• Despite huge cash offers she shunned limelight and became potato farmer
• But now she is baring all again to raise money for breast cancer charity after her sister died of the disease aged 43 

Comeback: Erika Roe, who became famous after streaking at Twickenham in 1982, has stripped off again for a 2015 calender to raise money for cancer

Good news, gentlemen. The answer to the ‘where are they now?’ question, when posed in relation to Erika Roe’s most famous assets, is not, mercifully, ‘down around her knees’.

Thirty-three years after she ran topless across Twickenham stadium, becoming the most famous streaker ever, the 56-year-old has agreed to reveal all, again.

It could be a rather deflating moment. What we all remember about Erika Roe (some more vividly than others, eh chaps?) is her bounce. While the sporting specifics of the rugby match between England and Australia in 1982 are a bit hazy, the sight of a grinning Erika’s buxom form hurtling across the pitch remains etched on the memory.

But being famous only for the buoyancy of your breasts is hazardous. Which is perhaps why Erika has become something of a recluse over the past three decades, shunning the limelight because she was horrified at becoming a sudden object of lust.

The woman who could have tried to use her notoriety as the route to a showbiz career shunned it all to become a farmer of sweet potatoes, of all things.

Her bosom, however — 34G, since you ask — is still very much in evidence and looking rather splendid, even though she has breastfed three children.

In other circumstances, asking a woman how her breasts are faring might invite a slap, but Erika is happy to talk about hers. Actually, she refers to them mostly with affection, though with an occasional hint of irritation.

In her first interview in a quarter of a century, she admits: ‘At this stage in my life, I’ve got the best relationship I’ve ever had with my breasts. But we’ve been through a lot together.

‘I must admit when I hear of women having surgery to have theirs increased, I do think: “Are you mad?” They are a burden. They get in the way. You can’t sleep. You get rucks on your shoulders from bras. I’ve spent my whole life taking my bra off at the earliest opportunity — just to get some comfort.’

Older readers won’t need to be reminded of how Erika’s breasts became national treasures.

Famous: The scene of Erika running across the pitch in front of 60,000 fans at Twickenham during a rugby match between England and Australia in 1982 is etched in many people's memory

Charitable: Erika has posed for 12 nude photos, taken by her daughter Imogen, to raise money for a breast cancer charity after her sister died of the disease in 2011 aged 43

On that fateful day, January 2, spirits were high. England were winning against Oz, the sun was shining, Erika and her friends had enjoyed perhaps a tad too much alcohol, and all was right with the world.

Where was her brain, though, when she — a seemingly unassuming 24-year-old who worked in a bookshop (‘and was absolutely not an exhibitionist,’ she insists now, in all seriousness) — decided to strip off her top and run across the pitch wearing only a pair of jeans. Had she taken leave of her senses?

‘Do you know, I still can’t explain what happened. It was very unlike me — although I’ve always been comfortable with nudity at home, I’d been the last person on the beach in France to take off her top.

But on that day, it was a case of just being swept up in the atmosphere, which was electric. At half-time, someone said “isn’t this where someone is supposed to streak on the pitch?” and that was it — I just went. I ripped my top off, then my bra.

‘It’s still a bit of a blur. I don’t even know where I left my clothes. The fact that I still had my cigarette in my mouth shows how unplanned it was.

‘My sister was at the game, too, and she actually missed it — she was powdering her nose. When she came out. our friends said, “you will never guess what has just happened”, and by that point I was being bundled into a police car.’

In other circumstances, asking a woman how her breasts are faring might invite a slap, but Erika is happy to talk about hers. Actually, she refers to them mostly with affection, though with an occasional hint of irritation

Hilarious: The sight of Erika a-bounce, with a young police officer trying to cover her assets with his helmet is the stuff of history

Although England went on to win the match 15-11, nice, well-brought up twentysomethings — she was a boarding school girl whose father ran a tea estate in Africa — don’t just streak across rugby pitches, as a rule.

‘No. Shall we say it was a moment of madness? I can only liken it to riding through a forest on a beautiful day, catching sight of a river, and being compelled to strip off and jump in.’

Her river, of course, was more of an ocean: 60,000 spectators watched her streak, with millions more enjoying the view from their armchairs — her own father and brothers included, she reveals. ‘Dad had gone into the kitchen to make tea, and one of my brothers shouted, “there’s a topless woman on the pitch”, and he dashed back in

‘Then one of them said “that looks a bit like Erika”, but no one thought any more of it until the phone rang and a voice said: “It’s Twickenham Police Station here. Do you have a daughter called Erika Roe?”’

The sight of Erika a-bounce, with a young police officer trying to cover her assets with his helmet (‘poor man, he was mortified’) is the stuff of history.

What happened to her afterwards, though? For a while, Erika Roe was the girl every newspaper wanted to talk to. She was inundated with requests for media appearances. Everyone wanted her. Or rather, it turns out, everyone wanted her breasts. On a plate, pretty much. And the rest.

‘I was offered an awful lot to strip off again,’ she recalls. ‘More money than I’d ever imagined earning in my life. I said yes to a few things, but I regretted that. I didn’t like the pictures. What I did at Twickenham was fun, innocent. These weren’t.

‘Then I was asked to do the centrefold for Penthouse magazine. I said absolutely not.’

Did she make any money? ‘Quite honestly, in those three or four years, I’d have made more money working in a pub.’

What Erika never did was pose nude. Until now.

Today, she is selling a calendar of herself in various stages of undress. But this time, she says, there is a good reason — to raise money for a breast cancer charity.

‘In 2011, I lost my little sister to breast cancer. She was 43. It devastated my family; we have taken her two children in.

‘I was thinking of ways to raise awareness, ways of telling women “don’t leave it too late to seek help, as my sister did”, and had this sudden realisation that I was famous for my breasts. I could do something. So here we are.’ Here we are indeed, gazing at a naked, 56-year-old Erika Roe. These are not the pictures Penthouse would have wanted, but they are beautiful nonetheless.

She is still a stunning woman, albeit in a very real way — non-lifted, non-Botoxed, complete with ‘wrinkles, and grey hair and wobbly bits and parts that aren’t remotely perfect’.

Naked and proud: Erika Roe poses in a garden chair for one of the photos that features in the calender

Farmer: The 56-year-old shunned the limelight after her 1982 escaade at Twickenham and later became a sweet potato farmer

What makes these pictures different, she says, is that they were done entirely on her terms. The photos were taken by her daughter Imogen, now 30, as part of a photography degree. Her two sons have not only sanctioned their release, but have helped Erika set up a website.

‘They grew up with me, so they are relaxed about nudity,’ she says, anticipating the raised eyebrows. ‘I’ve never been ashamed of my body.’

Whatever your view of public nudity, stripping off at this age, when inevitable comparisons to your youthful self will be made, is brave.

‘I expect some people won’t like it,’ she admits. ‘It was my daughter who persuaded me I should do it. She kept saying: “But Mum, you are beautiful as you are.”

‘I do think there is a need for women of my age to be out there, showing what a woman of 56 looks like — not the airbrushed perfect images of women we see, but real women with lines, birthmarks and blemishes, and evidence that they have lived.

‘It has struck me, increasingly, that the only images some youngsters — and I’m talking girls and boys here — see is of women who are airbrushed to perfection. That is wrong.’

She says she would hate to be a young woman today. ‘I think we’ve gone backwards rather than forwards. There’s such pressure on young girls now to look thin, to actually live this airbrushed perfection.’

She abhors, she says, the ‘pornification’ of society, and shudders at the Victoria’s Secret lingerie show shenanigans in London this week.

‘Porn terrifies me,’ she says. ‘This isn’t being appreciative of the female form. It isn’t celebrating womanhood. It is something different.’

Why, though? This is a woman who ran topless across a rugby pitch.

The Erika Roe 2015 Calendar is available via erikaroe.com, or againstbreastcancer.org.uk. It costs £12 with a portion of the profits donated to Against Breast Cancer

‘I think the difference is in the intent,’ she says. ‘What I did was about celebrating freedom.’

Obviously, her attitude is more bohemian than many — possibly, she admits, due to the fact that she grew up ‘quite a tomboy’ and was ‘very used to running around without many clothes on’.

Yet, when she stripped off on live television in 1982, she and her breasts bounced straight into a hornets’ nest.

‘I did get some awful letters,’ she says. ‘Sexually threatening, yes. Women always have to deal with that. Some of the language was crude, guttery. Not nice.’ But the criticism came from all sides. ‘Oh yes, from women, too. The ardent feminists thought I was terrible, that I’d let down the sisterhood.

‘I remember accepting an invitation to go to a rugby club dinner in Wales. I was the first woman to ever be allowed at one of those, and I remember the organisers saying they were going to have to smuggle me in because all the wives would be furious.

‘I asked to meet the women beforehand, and when I actually got to talk to them, to explain who I was, we had a laugh.’ She’s very much a woman who abhors the conventional.

She had her first child a few years after her Twickenham debacle, but the relationship that led to the pregnancy did not last. ‘We are still in touch, but I was very much a single mother,’ she admits.

Erika did marry, and laughs that yes, her husband knew she was the Erika Roe. ‘But he didn’t see what all the fuss was about.’ They moved to the Continent, setting up a successful farm, but the marriage foundered after 17 years and two more children, leaving deep scars.

I did get some awful letters. Sexually threatening. Women always have to deal with that. The ardent feminists thought I was terrible, that I’d let down the sisterhood

Erika Roe 

‘It was a classic mid-life thing, people moving in different directions. I was devastated when it ended. I nearly went under. I went through a period of being very low — but my children saved me.

‘And my abiding memory of that photo-session with my daughter is of joy, of feeling confidence in myself, my body, again.’

Erika carried on the business alone, heroically. ‘I renovated the property,’ she says. ‘I put in a bathroom myself, taught myself plumbing.’

In 2011, family tragedy struck. First her father died, then her sister, Jessie, passed away, from breast cancer.

‘It’s the genetic one,’ she admits. ‘I am screened every year. That’s why I’m here, to shout about how important it is. Jessie left it too late. Many women don’t even examine themselves, don’t know their own bodies. There is still this embarrassment. I think that is so terribly sad.’

And so her own body is back out there, in the public domain. It’s less perky than it was, inevitably, but its presence — and the questions it raises — are still pertinent.

Will people cheer her this time, though? ‘I hope so,’ she says. ‘But that’s up to them.’

• The Erika Roe 2015 Calendar is available via erikaroe.com, or againstbreastcancer.org.uk. It costs £12 with a portion of the profits donated to Against Breast Cancer.