Janey Godley is a 44-year-old wife, mum, stand-up comedian, actor and playwright.

She's pulled pints for umpteen years in Glasgow's East End. She married into a family with strong underworld connections. She's been called the female Billy Connolly.

Abused and sexually assaulted as a child, she's fled barefoot in the night from her husband's rage.

She's written an autobiography, Handstands in the Dark, about her colourful life.

"Sometimes I don't know who I am," she told me in a Glasgow restaurant over coffee, toast and jam.

But this isn't a woman searching for identity, far from it. Janey Godley has had so much drama packed into her life that she's not prepared to settle for any label the world chooses to pin on her.

She's short, round and curvy, with thick glossy black hair and a warm smile. The sort of barmaid men tell their troubles to. She's heard it all over the year-end some of it's ended up in her comedy act.

"I'm not a female comic," she told me. "I don't just do moans about periods or the menopause - I just tell stories about the life I've known. If you can't find something to laugh about in that, you'd be sunk."

Grubby

Briefly, Janey Currie was born and raised in Shettleston, "where you die 10 years sooner than anywhere else in Britain." Home was cramped and grubby - mum disliked housework and dad was an alcoholic. The chip pan was central to the menu.

Janey's mum, Annie, got by with the help of Valium. Dad Jim was hard-working and loved reading, talking politics - and booze. At night Janey and her sister and brothers would watch for him staggering home up the hill singing My Way.

But Janey kept a dark secret for too many years. Her mum's brother, David Percy,. sexually abused her from the age of six.

"I hated what he did to me. I stopped using my right hand at school because that was the one he made me do dirty things to him with," she told me.

Janey's school nickname was 'Shakey Cakey' because she trembled so much. She took to doing handstands all the time. "It made me dizzy but I liked that feeling. Maybe my secrets and sore bits would disappear if I were to stay like this."

The abuse went on for years. "I tried to tell Mum but she refused to listen. I think she couldn't accept I was being abused because it would have shattered her already shattered life."

At parties uncle sang Baby Face to his little niece, whom he called 'Sweet Pea'. But when her parents were out he forced her into sexual acts.

It wasn't until 1993, 30 years later, that Janey and her sister Ann, whom she'd learned was also a victim, had the courage to prosecute their uncle. "We wanted justice," she says simply.

In 1996 he was sentenced to two years in prison.

"Yes, I've had counselling. I've been in therapy but, you know what? I've moved on. To stay there letting it eat away at me would mean David Percy had won. I wasn't about to let any man ruin my life."

At 18 she married Sean Storrie from a family with underworld links. She wore a nylon wedding dress and plastic shoes and they spent their honeymoon night in Saltcoats.

The families didn't get on - hers were Protestant, his Catholic. Janey's brother-in-law spat on her at the reception.

Old George Storrie was the 'Don' of the family, he ruled his seven sons with an iron fist.

"At New Years dinners, the men sat at one table and talked business and the women sat in the kitchen. Sean stood up and said he wanted to sit with his wife. That didn't go down well."

She still doesn't know how the family made their money - and she Dan' want to. At one point she was shocked to find a cache of guns behind the wallpaper in the house she shared with Sean and daughter Ashley.

But she has a surprising fondness for 'Old George'. "We respected eachother. He knew I could stand up for myself."

Fry-up

For 15 years Janey and Sean ran a pub in Glasgow's East End. "We had great customers. The prostitutes would come in after a night's work and Sean would close the doors and cook them a big fry-up. They'd have a laugh, listen to music and dance.

"Every day, there'd be old guys in the pub telling the stories of heir lives. Junkies came in for some company and big burly men would come in shouting their mouths off. Best way to shut them up was to have a smart answer."

That's where Janey learned the skills that made her a success on the comedy circuit.

She went along to an open-mike night at a comedy club and went down a storm. Now she's top of the bill at clubs across the UK and as far afield as New York and New Zealand.

She's been a sell-out at the Fringe, appeared in Soho and this week she's MC of the comedians' tent at Glastonbury again.

Her play Smack - The Point of Yes ours the country in September. She has a show - Janey Godley Is Innocent - at the Edinburgh Festival and last year appeared on E4's Kings of Comedy.

So who is the real Janey Godley?

"God knows," she laughed. "I've never got round to finding out."

Subjects like child abuse, domestic violence and murder don't usually make for laughs, but in her tough and tender wee Glasgow 'wummin' style, Janey makes them hilarious.

She shuns publicity and lives in the West End with Sean and 19-year-old daughter Ashley who they educated privately "to give her the chance we never had."

Ashley is the pride of their lives. "She's beautiful, talented and kind-hearted," said her mum. "and she's studying drama at university. She codes to my gigs and chooses my clothes.

"I'm not into designer clothes or expensive jewellery. I'm a Primark girl really!"

As we talked in the little restaurant where Janey penned Handstands in the Dark, our conversation weaved back and forth between past and present.

When Old George Storrie died, the Krays sent a wreath. "Strangely enough I miss the old man. Whatever else he was, he was a very loving and gentle grandpa to Ashley."

Then we talk about the difficult years in her marriage. Sean sometimes lashed out and she'd run away with Ashley.

Then he'd plead with her to come back. She always did because Ashley loved her dad and Janey couldn't bear to separate them.

Janey and Sean celebrate their silver wedding this year. "One time after he'd lost his temper he asked me,'What kind of man am I?'

"He had his problems, too. It isn't easy being the son of a domineering father. He had to be the big man's son.

Whingeing

I found myself laughing at her jokes and crying as she described her childhood. But most of all I rated her as one amazing woman who's come through hell without whingeing.

"I'd been hurt as Janey Currie and hurt as Janey Storrie. So when I got a writing life of my own I used my middle name, Godley," she said.

I'm hoping it will be lucky for her. But if it isn't, no doubt she'll turn it into another funny story.

Janey finished her toast and carried our coffee cups into the kitchen at the restaurant.

"Once a barmaid," she laughed.