WHEN the curtain comes down on the York pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk, former Emmerdale star Tonicha Jeronimo plans to give up performing to become a mum.

"It's my last panto and acting job," says the actress, who played Linda Glover for three years in the ITV soap.

She and husband Stuart Wade, who played Biff Fowler in the same series, have two young children, Lorcan, four, and Sydney, one. "I want to be at home and raise my kids," says TJ, who began working as a singer as a child.

"It gets to the point where you don't go to any auditions because if you get the job you have to be away. As an actor, you have to go wherever you can for work. So I'm going to have my time with the kids.

"Panto is the best way to go out. It's fun and round the best time of the year. And this time I'm doing a comedy role instead of being the nice girl."

TJ will be playing Fairy Peapod, while Wade is cast as Simple Simon. The cast also includes another soap star, Lynne McGranger, best known as Home And Away's Irene.

Wade and TJ starred in panto at the Grand Opera House three years ago. They're pleased to be back because they like both the theatre and York, and it's only an hour's travelling time from their home to the north of Leeds.

Last time the couple - who started going out while appearing Emmerdale and got married in the soap before they wed in real life - were in panto in York, she was playing Cinderella and he was Buttons.

Lorcan saw that show and hasn't forgotten what went on. "He remembers the Ugly Sisters hurting me. He said the other day: 'Are those girls going to hurt you?'," says TJ.

In Emmerdale, Linda was killed in a car crash and, 18 months later, grieving Biff left the Yorkshire-set soap too. Since then, Halifax-born Wade has spent two years working for Hull Truck Theatre Company, appearing in productions include Faustus, Little Malcolm And His Struggle Against The Eunuchs, and Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

He made his first TV appearance since leaving Emmerdale in another Yorkshire TV production, The Royal. He played a man who had a stroke while driving his car and crashed into a pile of horse manure, ending up to his neck in the smelly stuff.

"It was very wet peat which I had to stay in for five hours. I was very cold," he recalls. "It was nice to do TV again but there's so much waiting around. I don't miss that part."

Wade too is looking at other interests outside acting. The pair have already owned a hairdressers in Leeds. Now Wade has set up a property development business.

"That's taken up quite a bit of time. I've put a lot of effort into it, but I'm my own boss and get to choose the hours that I work. I don't just see the kids when I get up and go to bed. Acting is something to do between the other work," he says.

"Hopefully, after the panto is finished, I can take a break and spend some more time with the family."

* Jack And The Beanstalk runs at York Grand Opera House from December 11 to January 4. Tickets 0870 606 3595.