ACTRESS Jane Asher - famous for being Beatle Paul McCartney's former fiancee and a maker of fine cakes - is coming to the borough next month.

Ms Asher, 57, was engaged to Paul McCartney in the 1960s and was the inspiration behind many of his classic Beatles love songs including Here There And Everywhere and And I Love Her.

She is now famous as an actress, author, cake-maker and businesswoman, and most recently appeared on our TV screens in ITVs Crossroads.

Her other roles include a part alongside Michael Caine in Alfie.

Her husband is artist and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.

The attractive redhead is now planning to open a new garden at Whipps Cross Hospital, as she is a long term supporter of the charity Arthritis Care.

She will arrive on July 15 to open the Douglas Woolf Garden, which is for arthritic and rheumatology patients.

Mr Woolf was a consultant rheumatologist at Whipps, who also lived locally. The garden has been opened in his memory, in recognition of his life's work in trying to help people with the debilitating condition.

The garden has been designed for green-fingered people who suffer from arthritis, and developed so that sufferers can keep indulging in their passion for gardening, without the condition getting in their way of their hobby.

Volunteers from Walthamstow Lions and staff from the rheumatology service at the hospital have planted hundreds of pounds worth of shrubs and flowers in the new garden.

A spokesman for the hospital said: "The aim of the project is to show people how to maintain their gardening hobby after developing arthritis."

The garden is situated in the hospital's yellow zone.

Mr Woolf's widow still lives in the area, and will be invited to attend the opening. His son, Tony Woolf, is a leading rheumatologist in Cornwall.

A spokesman for Whipps said: "I'm told there is a great deal of excitement about this visit, particularly among doctors of a certain age."

May 31, 2003 07:30