Byline: Hannah Roberts
HER family took to the hills as the 20th century ended, warning of global computer meltdown and the death of the digital age.
As it turned out, the world went on - but sadly her parents' marriage did not.
Now, more than a decade after their fears of the millennium bug triggering nuclear war and the collapse of capitalism, their 18-year-old daughter, Amber, has quietly emerged as the face of an internet dating website.
Not only that, she is a rising star on the British fashion scene, with a glittering career in films on the horizon.
It's all very far removed from the doom and gloom predicted by computer programmer Jeremy Perron and his educational consultant wife Angela Henderson when they quit Wiltshire to lead a selfsufficient 'Good Life' in a remote farmhouse near Forres, Moray, with no running water or electricity.
When the world woke up on January 1, 2000, with nothing more than a giant hangover, Amber's life went on.
At the age of 14 she beat 10,000 hopefuls to be a finalist in a Sugar magazine competition and moved on to modelling, with campaigns for designer Jack Wills and shoots for Vogue now under her belt.
But now the former public schoolgirl has hit the jackpot in an award-winning advert for dating site match.com, which sees her and actor James Connelly falling in love as they sing an impromptu duet in a vintage record shop.
The ad is now popular on the internet, with more than 100,000 hits. Yesterday, a spokesman for the website said that they had no idea Amber was connected they had no idea Amber was connected to the family that predicted the internet's demise.
Match.com marketing chief Katie Sheppard said: 'We don't research the parents of people in our ads. We chose Amber for her star quality.
'Not only has she got a lovely singing voice but she brought real emotion to the story capturing the hearts of singles looking for love.'
Amber, who took violin and piano lessons as a youngster, is also to appear in several films this year, notably action adventure Your Highness with Natalie Portman.
Yesterday her mother proudly said: 'With her huge stage presence, she was always destined to be more than a musician.'
The family hit the headlines when they moved north with Amber and her brother Jack and predicted the end of the world as we know it. They set up their own generator, a vegetable garden and chicken run to survive the expected chaos.
Mr Perron, Amber's stepfather, had stockpiled water purification tablets, medical supplies and sacks of rice to feed them for year.
But he did not enjoy the media spotlight their lifestyle attracted and he and Miss Henderson later divorced. Miss Henderson, who has since remarried and now runs a property business in Cyprus, said that once the millennium bug didn't bite, Amber had 'a normal childhood', attending Aberdeen's City Music School before gaining a performing arts scholarship to the public school Gordonstoun.
Originally she claimed the family's extreme relocation north had raised awareness and helped spur Britain into readiness to beat the bug. She now claims that the move was 'mostly Jeremy anyway'.
Miss Henderson added: 'During the whole millennium bug thing, Amber was a very young child.
'It's irrelevant to her career now but it was a good decision to come to Scotland. Really good things happened in Scotland.'
CAPTION(S):
Flashback: News of the family split
Hot date: Amber, right, who has taken the internet by storm
Beating the bug: The family after their flight to Scotland
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