PAGE 3 legend Linda Lusardi’s boobs made her famous — but she admits there have been times when she was terrified they could kill her.

Linda first noticed a lump 12 years ago and has found an ­average of one a year ever since.

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Today, in an exclusive chat, she tells how the abnormalities have always been harmless benign cysts, but urges women to get checked out, even if they are terrified of what they may find.

Linda told The Sun on Sunday: “It is frightening.

“The first few I found left me terrified. I have had about 13 since then.

“With the first one, I thought, ‘What the hell is it — is it cancer?

“Am I going to die?’.

“I have had cysts for about 12 years.

“I think there has only been three years during that time when I haven’t needed hospital treatment.

“But I’ve always had them checked and they have all just been made of fluid.

“The doctors get rid of them by puncturing them with a ­needle.

“I had to go to the hospital again earlier this year and I could see them draining them on a screen and taking a biopsy.

“They are so deep you can’t see them.

“I always say, ‘How will I know if the next one is a cyst or if it is cancer?’.

“But the doctors at the breast clinic at my local hospital have been ­brilliant — we are on first-name terms.

“They say I will be able to tell the difference.

“Obviously, it goes through your mind, but I don’t worry now.

“I am lucky. I make sure I check my breasts. Everyone should.”

Linda spoke out ahead of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which started on Tuesday.

Tragically, the pin-up’s best friend, fellow glamour model Angie Layne, died from the disease aged just 34 in 1991.

We launched our Get Checked campaign, backed by charities CoppaFeel! and Breast Cancer Now, in 2020 after it emerged thousands of women were putting off checks with their GPs even though they had symptoms.

Linda, who is supporting the ­campaign, said watching Angie lose her battle against the disease after finding “a tiny lump” was ­“dreadful and heartbreaking”.

‘DREADFUL, HEARTBREAKING’

She added: “I felt Angie’s cancerous lump, and it did feel very different to my cysts.

“It felt like a non-moveable end of a knuckle.

“That’s what it felt like — a bone. I only really had one best friend, and I lost her.”

Linda took part in the Full Monty On Ice ITV show in her memory in 2020 — and revealed that her figure has barely changed since she first posed in The Sun in 1976, aged 18, after being ­talent-spotted at a bus stop.

Last month, Linda turned 66, which means she now qualifies for her state pension.

But, as our exclusive pictures show, she still has the face and figure of a woman decades younger — and the ­bubbly star is thrilled about reaching the big milestone.

She said: “I’m really looking forward to having money, a pension, coming in every week that I haven’t had to get up and go to work for.

“I’m embracing it!

“But I can’t believe how quickly it’s come round. Life’s gone so quickly.”

Linda has never stopped working. She gave up glamour modelling in 1988 and went into acting, enjoying stints on Brookside and Emmerdale.

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And for the first time in 35 years, she has decided not to do panto this year because she wants to cherish being with her family following the loss of her mother, Lila, in September last year, aged 90.

She lost her dad Nello in 2017, aged 87.

She said: “Even though I was offered three pantos this Christmas, I’ve turned them down. I’m just going to take a Christmas off.

“I need some space for me, to get back to me.”

It will mean she can be with actor and writer Sam Kane, now 55, who she met in panto in 1994, and their two children, Ministry Of Sound singer daughter Lucy Kane, 28, and actor and singer son Jack Kane, 25, at their home in Hertfordshire.

Linda describes Sam as her “soulmate”, but they grew even closer after she came close to death in 2020 from Covid.

She said: “When I came out of ­hospital, it was very emotional for a long time — Sam was just looking at me and crying.

“I think it brought us even closer — not that we weren’t really close before.

“We are like a young couple when we’re together, holding hands and kissing all the time.

“We’re lucky enough to have a hot- tub and we sit in it cuddling, and the kids will say, ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’. ”

Both Linda and Sam were ill with Covid, but she ended up on an ­oxygen machine in intensive care for a week, with doctors doubtful about her chances of survival.

‘VIVID DREAMS’

She now admits: “I’d given up, you know.”

But Sam did not give up and found a psychic who Linda credits with ­giving her back the will to live.

She said: “I think she just got the energy going around my body. She got me going again.

“When Sam thought he was losing me, he reached out every which way and got in touch with a lady called June Field, who works as a medium. I knew nothing about it.

“I was asleep, I couldn’t even breathe without a mask at the time, but she told Sam, ‘I’ve been into Linda’s energy and it’s really low, but I’ve got it going again’.

“I had really vivid dreams — happy, healthy dreams.

“And when I woke up, I just thought, ‘I’m going to be OK. I’m going to fight this. I’m not going anywhere’.

“And my fighting spirit came back.”

After Linda fully recovered, she embraced life with new energy. She said: “I was just so happy to be here.

“Everything became all about love — my children, Sam, the dog.

“Everything became highlighted. It made me look at what’s important in life.”

But Sam, who she married in 1998, has struggled to deal with the trauma of her illness.

Linda said: “He is very triggered by anything to do with Covid because of nearly losing me.

‘A FEW SIT-UPS’

“If he watches something about it on the news or in a drama, he physically can’t breathe.

“Whereas because I was in the eye of the storm and so ill, I don’t think I ­experienced it in the same way as he did.”

At the beginning of their relationship, Linda worried about how the ten-year age difference would affect them as they grew older.

She said: “When we first met, I think he was 26 and I was 36 and it wasn’t a problem then.

“I thought that when I got to the age I am now that it would be a problem, but it isn’t.

“I can’t see it ever being a problem. He’s just my best friend, and he’s my person and my soulmate.”

Linda has never had cosmetic ­surgery and credits her age-defying looks to the skin type she inherited from her Italian father, and a non-surgical treatment called NeoGen, which uses nitrogen gas to create plasma energy that penetrates the skin, stimulating collagen production.

She does not go to the gym, but enjoys a long walk every day and occasionally makes a ­decision “to do a few sit-ups”.

But for several years she has tried to avoid eating until 1pm each day, and stops eating at 9pm at night.

She said: “That’s eight hours of ­eating. I try to do it most days. That’s become a way of life.

“Still, I can’t give up my Christmas chocolate. I’ll binge in front of the telly at eight o’clock at night.

“But it doesn’t matter because my body will have processed that by one o’clock the following day.”

Linda also limits alcohol to once a week: “I’ll have a glass of wine on Sunday, maybe with Sunday dinner.

“But I’m only a social drinker. I’ve never opened a bottle on my own.”

She has watched in sadness the toll boozing has taken on her old friend Paul Gascoigne.

She has known the former footballer, now 57, since the Eighties.

Linda said: “He rings me now and again, but I have to tell him to text me because I can’t understand a word he says.

“His accent is so strong and he usually sounds like he’s had a drink.

“I do fear for him, because he is damaged.

“He’s always had a heart of gold and he’s always been taken advantage of by people around him.”

Linda, too, has a heart of gold, as well as amazing strength.

She said of another cancer scare in 2016, when doctors found a grapefruit-sized fibroid tumour in her womb, which led to a hysterectomy: “Everybody goes through sadness — it’s how you pick yourself up and keep going that matters.

“And I’ve kept going.

“I have really, really fond memories of Page 3.

“I remember saying to my mum when I was younger, ‘If I die ­tomorrow, I’ve lived a million lives’.

“I’ve had an absolutely fabulous life.”