Gloria Hunniford, 69, has been broadcasting for some 40 years. Born in Northern Ireland, she was a semi-professional singer at the age of eight, but later turned her hand to presenting.

She was the first woman to have a daily show on Radio 2 and established herself as a popular TV personality with programmes such as Sunday, Sunday and Open House with Gloria Hunniford.

She appeared on the third series of Strictly Come Dancing and is still a regular face on the small screen, most recently with Cash in the Attic.

She moved to Sevenoaks in 1982 and married her second husband, celebrity hairdresser Stephen Way, in 1998. In 2004 her daughter, presenter Caron Keating, died of breast cancer aged 41, and Gloria set up a cancer charity in her name.

IR: I've been a little bit hesitant about this interview, not because it's you, but because your career has been about interviewing - interviewing people and being interviewed - and I was trying to think if there's anything you've not been asked before.

GH: I'm sure there are lots of things.

IR: We'll see. First off, how are things?

GH: How are things in general? Things are pretty good, busy, my New Year resolution was to get a better balance between work and play as it were. I don't think I've quite managed it, I've certainly not managed it the first quarter of the year, our business dips a little bit in the summer months and maybe I'll get a better balance in the summer.

IR: I was going to say, because you are incredibly busy. It was a nightmare to try and set up this interview.

GH: I am, I do keep myself busy, I've always been a busy person, I was taught to be busy. First of all when you are brought up with a Northern Ireland ethic you work. Historically it has a very good record of work ethic and that's the way we were brought up. If my mother would have come along and seen me sitting in a chair doing nothing she would say "go off and do something, when you're old you can sit in an armchair but not now" or if we were reading a book "why are you sitting there not really doing very much? Go and play" but of course they were innocent times in that we got virtually shoved out of the house after breakfast time and never came back until …

IR: You can't do that now can you?

GH: No. So they were very innocent days. We had great freedom, but we were always busy, and so with the result I was brought up to work. I've worked since I was eight as a singer, semi-professional singer, and so I have always known what work is, I've always liked my work, I still want to work and I've never expected anyone to work for me.

IR: But when will you stop? If you've been going since you were eight.

GH: I probably won't. I mean that's not to say that I perhaps won't tip the balance a bit. Or it might give me up, who knows. But I think as long as my health is there, and as long as somebody wants me to do something, and as long as it appeals to me, I think I will do it because I have a dread of sitting. I don't want to sit and do nothing. I don't want to do a round of coffee mornings and lunches.

IR: There must be days, though, when you are working when you are on a train to the studio or something, and you just crave sitting at home with a paper.

GH: That's not to say that I don't enjoy a day chilling out and you know one of my best days would be a day with no deadlines, so that I get up in the morning and it doesn't matter what time I do what and when and we do get quite a lot of that. We go to France quite a bit, for example I go tomorrow for a week and the marvellous thing is, apart from the odd dinner engagement or something, it doesn't matter. Get up in the warm and go to the market when I want, come back. There are no deadlines and that is a real freedom. Sit and read a book if you want etc. I know I enjoy my work, but that is not to say that I don't enjoy my time off, but I would not like, at the moment anyway, feeling reasonably fit and healthy, I would not like an empty diary.

IR: So you've got to work on the balance a bit?

GH: I still find it challenging. I am in my 60s and if you read all the research they say that in order to keep yourself ticking over and keep your brain active, the more you busy you keep it and the more active you keep it the better.

IR: Mind you, I saw a report recently that people start ageing at 27.

GH: And that scared you? On the other hand we only use a fraction of our brain anyway, so I mean there is still an awful lot there.

IR: Speak for yourself Gloria

GH: Well we do, medically we only use a very small fraction of our brains and that could be developed if we wanted to. I am trying to keep what I have active. Long answer to your question.

IR: When I was chatting to Cheryl Baker she was saying how difficult it is for women of a certain age to stay in television. How have you have managed it?

GH: Yes, but I have been prepared to branch out. Some people feel that when they are in television at the very, very top, and I have had my prime time programmes on Fridays and Saturday nights, but you have to be realistic and you know that it is not always going to be prime time on a Friday or Saturday. You know that if you have half a brain at all, so those who say it is very hard to stay at the top mean it is very hard to stay prime time. But the interesting thing is that during my career, television has changed so much that although there is still a very prime time, day time, that used to be the very poor cousin, has now become so important and so while I have been branching out, and being prepared to branch out and go different ways, television has changed anyway and so therefore when I was first asked, for example to do Channel Five and I did Open House for five years, I remember my agent saying to me, "Are you sure you want to do Channel Five?". Channel Five then was regarded in the late evening as a bit sort of soft pornish late at night. I remember thinking, 'well, their money looks as good as anybody else's'. They were prepared to give me an absolute clean slate to do what I wanted in terms of an afternoon show and how many times do you get the luxury to do that? But ironically enough, virtually from that moment, Channel Five became terribly fashionable and now, of course, Channel Five does some really quite ground-breaking stuff. So I happened to be in at the beginning of that, but I was prepared to do that. I was prepared to go that way because I have never been driven by money. I like to get the going rate for a job, don't get me wrong, but I have never just done work for money. I have never sort of said, 'well I hate the thought of this programme, or it is not really me, but I am just going to do it for the money'.

IR: Really, you have never done that? It must be so easy to do though.

GH: Never. I can honestly say I have never done anything just for the money. If I think it is not right for me, I won't do it. And luckily I have been around people who have been looking after me and I always like to know what I have been asked to do, but for example, I was asked to do Big Brother's Big Mouth (an offshoot of Big Brother). I wouldn't do that. It's just not my bag. I don't want to go on and eff and blind. It's just not me. I have worked long and, as you rightly say, I have been very fortunate to have a long career, and I have spent my time trying to build up a degree of credibility and I just think just because it is the trend to eff and blind on TV doesn't necessarily mean that I would be the right person to join in. So I won't do programmes that are like that because I just know that I wouldn't sit comfortably in it.

IR: This was not Big Brother? It was Big Brother's Big Mouth where they talk about what's happened on Big Brother?

GH: I have been asked to do those. I have been asked to do Celebrity Big Brother and I have been asked to do various reality shows.

IR: Why is it "No" because you have done Strictly Come Dancing.

GH: I did do Come Dancing because I think that is a really tasteful reality show. I wouldn't do Jungle (I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!) for a million pounds because I know I couldn't do it. First of all I am allergic to mosquitoes and lots of bugs – truly allergic. I know I couldn't eat all that stuff, so I just know I would be useless really, so I couldn't just do that for the money. I couldn't. And therefore I am relatively choosy about what I do but that's not to say that you don't make mistakes sometimes in what you end up doing, but in terms of judgement I take a good judgement as to whether I think it would be suitable for me. I think you have to.

IR: There must be some you look back on and think "Hmmmm" in hindsight?

GH: There was one that was swung into action very quickly that really didn't have the right production values on it but you see, I have been lucky in that all my stuff has been long-running. Sunday, Sunday for nine years. It was Radio Two for nearly 14 years. It was Open House for five years so it is not like I have been trying a different series every five minutes. I keep thinking that programme was Mr and Mrs, but it wasn't. I will think of it in a minute, but that ended up not a very good programme but that was, in hindsight, I think hasty research on the couples taking part and just production values not right. If you don't get your production values right it may not succeed at all, irrespective of whether they book cracking guests. You are only as strong as the team around you and who they book for you because if you are not getting the right guests and you are not doing the right items… That's why Sunday, Sunday was so successful. Sunday, Sunday appealed to everybody. They got big Hollywood names and we had a cracking team around us and when I look back now if I could relive a period of my life, that's the one that I would relive because I know I appreciated it at the time, but I had just come over from Northern Ireland and everything was happening so fast that it was taking me all my time to keep pace with myself and, although I did appreciate it, I didn't get the full appreciation of it and now I would give anything, with the extra experience that I have, to interview those people. Really everybody. From all the major Hollywood people like Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston and Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron and Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas. All the glamour names. All glamour Hollywood. And they were amazing. Jimmy Stewart. Everybody you can think of it. We got all of a whole new breed of new comics in this country – Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders did their first TV interview. All the Harry Hills; all those young comics, all those young performers who are now such a part of the rich fabric of comedy. Lenny Henry, they all came through Sunday, Sunday as well. It was really an interesting period so you got the big established names and then you got all the young people coming through. It was a tremendous time.

IR: Were there any celebrities who you interviewed and afterwards thought 'I wish I had asked them that'?

GH: Oh all the time. Because sometimes you are messed up with timings. You are just getting to the crucial question when the floor manager gives you the wind up. And occasionally when the interview just doesn't go the right way and you come away bashing your own head thinking, "Was that me and the way I steered that, or was that just that person having an off day?". But in the main, when people come on your programme they want to talk to you, so there are very relatively few occasions when you get reluctance and people purposefully give you a wrong interview or a bad interview.

IR: So who has done that then?

GH: Robert Mitchum was not easy. Robert Mitchum is notorious and I remember bumping into Michael Parkinson and he said to me, because we were all around LWT at the same time and he said, "Who have you got this week?" I replied that I had Robert Mitchum and he said, "You know he is not easy?". I remember looking at Michael and thinking that he would be alright with me

IR: You thought you'd charm him?

GH: Well not so much that. I have never really played on that kind of charming act to people. I have always based it on research and I thought to myself, "I will read so much about Robert Mitchum that I will know everything and I will be able to get it out of him" but, of course, he started off literally on "Nope", "Yep" and he did that all the way through. But what I realised quite quickly was that the interviewer's nightmare is silence and so when you think he is not going to answer you, you leap in with another question. Can't bear the silence. But after a while I got the measure of him and I realised that because of his drawl that if I didn't leap in so quickly, that although he would say "Yep" and I would think, "Oh my God, he's not going to tell me anything else", then he would start to drawl, so I learned to put a zip on my mouth and sit back a bit. Alan Whicker did it all the time.

IR: Do you find it difficult?

GH: Of course I do.

IR: You speak so eloquently and you speak a lot, let's be honest.

GH: Oh yes, I do, but the thing is that it is because as an interviewer on air you dread silence. I mean if I asked you a question and you didn't answer me, I am kind of thinking oh s***, here we go, I don't even have a fluent interviewee here and he is not going to talk to me and there are many interviewing techniques to get people to talk. Anyway, so Robert Mitchum was one. I remember Anthony Perkins came and it was the first film that he had directed and I can't remember whether that was Psycho 3. Anyway, it was the first the film that he directed and he was at the end of a very long roll of talking to everybody about the film. It was Radio 2 and I remember inbetween records saying to him, because he was going back the next day to America, and I remember saying to him, "You must be fed up with talking about this", and he went "Am I sounding bored? Am I sounding tired? Oh my God, then I will have to…"

But he wasn't, and I was just making conversation. So there are people, mainly Americans, who know how to play the game. British people now know how to play the game, but sometimes they didn't then. I am talking about the '80s. Americans always knew how to play the game on chat shows because they have so many of them in America that it is just commonplace for them and they know that if they go on at all they are there to entertain. And sometimes it is knowing the target of your programme. It is like with Sunday, Sunday. We knew that we either went for humour or intrigue. We didn't go for any middle ground really. We either went for the anecdotes or the really funny stories, or we really went for the really off-beat intriguing things. But I remember Rod Steiger on Sunday, Sunday. He cried on me on three different occasions. Rod Steiger, you know the big hard man. And the three occasions were he cried when he talked about his daughter who is now an opera singer and the joy that he had of sitting in the audience and he said he wept with pride. He wept with sorrow when he talked about his drunken period, his alcohol and how bad it got, and he wept when he talked about, I don't know which number wife it was, but his then wife and how she had pulled him out of the abyss and I remember looking at him and thinking, "this is Rod Steiger and he has cried on me three times".

IR: It must be rather bizarre.

GH: It is bizarre

IR: I am not sure I would know how to cope with that.

GH: Well, it's television, so you sit back and think, "this is telly".

And then, because you are getting the highs and lows aren't you? I am just trying to think of the really memorable things. Interviewing Bette Davis; virtually the last interview she did before she died. It was extraordinary because I had never seen anything like it because in our studio it gets 'seen it, heard it, done it', having done so many programmes over the years, but when Bette Davis walked on the set, there was so much hush and everyone said you couldn't believe it. It was just like time stood still because this was the legendary Bette Davis and I had been given very strict instructions when she came on that we recorded her in the afternoon and I was told that I had to walk forward so normally the people would walk through the door, walk down the steps and to the set. In this case, I had to do the introduction and then walk to the door, put my arm up like this (raises her arm horizontally), in case she needed support, but not to touch her and not to take her arm, but just to put my arm up if she wanted it. But then you feel like a right prat standing here with your arm up like this but she didn't need it.

She was so thin. I remember her all dressed in black, and her assistant set the table, between the two seats and everything arrived with her, so the black handbag would have been at the back with the lace handkerchief coming out of it, then in front of it would have been an ashtray in the days when you could have a cigarette and then in front of that would have been her silver goblet with her water in it, and behind all of that was her book that she was plugging all set up strategically, so it meant that she never had to look for anything, it was always there, it was her goblet, her handbag, her lace hankie if she needed one. It was professionalism.

IR: Celebrities are just people like you and me, do you find celebrities are not all they are cracked up to be and when you meet them in the flesh they are just like anyone else?

GH: Some are, some aren't. I think the majority are. I think the majority are as you see them and as you find them. I think people around them sometimes make them sound …

IR: Elevate them?

GH: Well no, not elevate them at all. Sometimes research teams say 'they're being a bit awkward, a bit tricky' but in actual fact you will find it's team around them that's being awkward and when you get to the person they are great. The original point I made is accurate in that if someone agreed to do a programme in the main it's because they really want to do it, and so therefore they are relatively easy. Some people are very fussy about what they want around them.

Racquel Welch, for example, I remember this wasn't my story but a make-up story, she was in make-up for about three-and-a-half hours just before Sunday, Sunday and she said "I'd love a salad" and a little researcher brought her a salad and set it down in front of her in make-up and so she said "you call this a salad?" because it was just a few leaves, a bit of tomato, a bit of egg and you know, it was just horrendous. She took the egg or something and just threw it across the room, so she threw a bit of a wobbly, and then she also threw a bit of a wobbly when I was doing Pebble Mill, and we used to do one live and then, Pebble Mill was shared Alan Titchmarsh, myself and a man called Ross King, and on the day that I did it I would do one live and record one in the evening for later in the week, and fortunately this one was a recorded one because I did the introduction, Racquel Welch walked out and she looked a million dollars and she came, she sat down in the chair and she said "you don't expect me to do this interview with this kind of rubbish lighting do you?", and so I was thinking "oh God if this is live what would we be doing", and so she said "I'm stopping this recording and I'm going to my dressing room until you give me honeycomb lighting", so she did. She walked upstairs.

IR: I don't think I could cope with that, I've got no time for that.

GH: Well you say that but yet you see when I thought about it afterwards I thought here's a woman who makes a living by her looks, and if you have been living and working in Hollywood as she had, you get used to a high standard of lighting and a high standard of everything, you know, high standard of make-up, high standard of being looked after and they expect it.

IR: That's why they dip away from normal life isn't it?

GH: Well it might be somebody else's, you see what's normal? You know, it's what you get used to isn't it, and sometimes, and therefore, I am only assuming because I've never lived there that it's lifestyle. I'm only assuming that when they get used to that kind of treatment in Hollywood where at one time, I don't know how it is today, but at one time money was no matter, they were protected by the big movie companies and so on, and I think they just used to things being right, people just want things right and the trouble is that these days in television for example, you know television is run by accountants now and sometimes things aren't right because, it's like the National Health Service, everything is pared back and is run by men and women in grey suits who push figures around all day long, and many of them don't understand the actual health issues in the health service or what television is all about.

IR: TV has changed for the worse has it?

GH: Yes and sometimes the standards around television are not right.

IR: Surely not on the BBC?

GH: Well, a lot of BBC programmes are farmed out to independents, so it depends how the independent who takes 'X' number of pounds how they treat people. So the bottom line of all of this, what I'm saying is that with cutbacks everything has changed, everything has changed in terms of how programmes are set up and money that's there for programmes, you know, budgets for sets, I mean the first thing that the majority, unless you are a big player like Jonathan Ross, the first thing that you hear usually is that "actually there's not a hell of a lot of money in the budget but we would love you to do it". So these days, increasingly you have to make a, going back to your original question, about whether you just do things for money, you have to be sure that what you are doing is not just silly money, or alternatively that you are doing something that you like and that you enjoy because you are not going to be paid massively for it anyway. It has all changed, I mean that's not a personal tale, that is just a generality in the business, you know the business has changed a lot.

IR: You mentioned Jonathan Ross, now you were quite outspoken about his lewd comments.

GH: Well actually that particular one was taken out of context. I did not attack Jonathan Ross, I was asked by the Radio Times in a very innocuous interview about different types of interviewing techniques, and I just said that Parky for me was the master because he was genuinely interested in people and he let people talk and I always learned something about what they were talking about, about their careers and learn something about them.

But as I find with a lot of the younger performers, like Jonathan Ross, that it's all about them and in Jonathan Ross's case there was a period of time when it was just lazy questions, everything was about your sex life. I remember when he was talking to Katherine Jenkins and I don't want this to be an attack on Jonathan Ross because it's not, you asked me the question and I'm giving you an example of what I was talking about. But I remember he asked Katherine Jenkins, a beautiful young girl, talented young girl, and he said "how many times do you do it a week?" and she went "Jonathan, my mother's in the audience, you know", and he said "oh come on, how many times do you do it a week?" I remember thinking, at first of all, I don't know, I don't want to know how many times she does it a week, I don't find it a very clever question, and you know she was clearly embarrassed by it, and I, as a viewer, after he had asked her about four times how many times she does it a week, was a) bored by the question and b) almost uncomfortable.

IR: Would you have answered that question if you'd been asked?

GH: No, but this is nothing, you know, it wouldn't be in my bag, nor would you find someone like Michael Parkinson, it's not even an intelligent question.

IR: Is that an indication of how TV has changed though? Or is that just Jonathan, is that just him.

GH: It's horses for courses, the young man, like you, will enjoy the type of comedy that I might not necessarily. Young people want that kind of really edgy stuff and I enjoy edgy stuff. I like some of it, I don't like all of Little Britain, but I like Little Britain, I enjoy it, I like Catherine Tate too mostly, I think she's great, very funny. But there are times when I think Little Britain goes too far with some of their sketches and characters and I don't like them. But I like edgy comedy too, but on a general chat show I just don't like, for me anyway, this is just my taste, boring lazy questions like "how often do you do it a week?" it's a boring question.

IR: There's a vacancy on This Morning. Have you been asked to step in?

GH: No I haven't, no. But I have worked for This Morning and I still do the odd bit for This Morning. I wouldn't want to do every day anymore. I would like to do every day as Alan Titchmarsh does for three months and then you get a three-month break, and then you get another three months. For me I've done five days a week all my life virtually, right, going back to Northern Ireland, you know, live radio everyday and then subsequently live television everyday and at this stage of the game I wouldn't want to be locked into a contract that's every day of the week.

IR: Ok.

GH: Because it's too tying, I like to go to France with my husband, I like having time with my grandchildren, you know, like the last five days I've spent with them, and the whole five days I just block off in my diary and I wouldn't be able to do that if I was locked in every day.

IR: So have they approached you?

GH: No they haven't approached me about it, no, no, and I wouldn't, you know I think I'm at the wrong end of the age scale to go onto This Morning, because Phillip (Schofield) is now well into his 40s, heading for 50, and I would imagine, this is only me speculating, I would imagine they would take a younger person than him.

IR: We'll see.

GH: It's anybody's guess. But on the other hand I think that television has never been more right for my type of credibility, because television has gone through a very dodgy period of not believing what people say, the whole Jonathan Ross, Andrew Sachs thing, irresponsibility of that, and the other guy ..

IR: Russell Brand.

GH: Yes, and the whole telephone scam and everything. So television has gone through a dodgy period in that sense, and therefore I think there's a place for people like myself, tried and tested, what I've tried to aim for is credibility, reliability and, well just the credibility aspect of it and I know how to do live TV and live radio because I've done it all my life so I think there's a place for me.

And also I've been through everything in life, you know I've been through divorce, I've been through losing a child, I've been through the situations in life, life experiences and I think people identify quite strongly with me, and therefore although there are a lot of very good young performers all round, I mean very good young performers, but I still think that there's a place for my type of journalism really, or broadcasting. Wogan's still going very strong, I think it's only a matter of time just as we have an all-news channel, I think it's a matter of time until we find a channel that's geared for the slightly older viewer, you know 45s or whatever age.

IR: A special Gloria channel maybe?

GH: So I think there will be a place, and although I can't tell you what the series is at the minute because it hasn't been announced, I'm just about to start a new series, something slightly different for me. The point I'm making is that, you know, at the minute I'm doing Cash in the Attic, Cash in the Celebrity Attic, we'll have the new series coming up, I do Alan Titchmarsh once a week, so you know, that's quite a lot of TV, on top of all the other corporate work that I do.

IR: Have you checked out your own attic after doing Cash in the Attic?

GH: (Laughs) I sometimes go through the process of thinking of what would I throw out if I was doing it? And sometimes it's very hard, because I think "well that may be worth a little bit, but on the other hand would I like that", I'm very bad at throwing out anything, I would probably be the worst, but it is amazing what you find. This new series I have just shot, I finished it just yesterday, or whatever day it was last week, and David Emanuel was the guest and he was telling me about the day of the Royal Wedding (Charles and Diana's) because he and his then wife Elizabeth made the dress of course. I said to him "did you have to go to the Palace on the morning to get her into the dress?" and he said "of course" he went to Clarence House and he said "when we had her in the dress, she was looking amazing. I said to her 'did you remember to tie the underskirt really tight' because apart from being hooped you tie the top' and she said 'oh I can't remember whether I did that or not' and then he said he had this vision of the underskirt falling off on the way up the Abbey, and he said 'there's nothing for it, I'm going to have to go up and under', so he got down on his hands, it was a big, big skirt wasn't it, he got down on his hands and knees went up and underneath and made sure that the thing was tied, and as he's coming out on his hands and knees and coming out from under the skirt, the Queen Mother opened the door to wish Diana the very best and he went "morning Ma'm". The things you find in people's drawers, I'm telling you, very interesting.

IR: I'm worried now.

GH: It's a great public programme to do.

IR: Are there any other TV celebrity shows you would consider? Any other reality shows you would consider? (Question from A Pepsiam, Vine Court Road, Sevenoaks)

GH: I think some of the cooking ones I would consider. I've been asked to do Celebrity Master Chef. I've resisted that one, but there's some other cooking ones that I might do.

IR: Are you good at cooking?

GH: No, I'm reasonable at cooking I'm not fantastic at cooking, but I think I like those ones, I think they're quite good. Other ones, I certainly would not be doing the skating one, that would be another off my list, I don't think I would up for that one. I loved doing Strictly Come Dancing, that was brilliant for me I loved it, I think that's the best, if I'm being honest.

IR: I think every time I've seen you, you've talked about Strictly Come Dancing, it's clear how much you like it.

GH: I love the Jungle, I love watching the Jungle.

IR: But you wouldn't go in?

GH: No. I do not like Big Brother at all on any level I really don't. I find it's like watching paint dry, I don't see the merit of Big Brother at all, I really don't.

I've been lucky enough to have my own chat/magazine programme on a number of occasions and I think that when you've been used to having your own show it's actually quite difficult to share it with a co-presenter because the buck always has to stop with the one person. I find that largely I've been used to doing my own thing. I've always presented my own radio shows, my own TV shows, my own chat shows, own afternoon shows. The only time I've shared, funnily enough, was on This Morning, and that was fine but I was just standing in for a couple of weeks.

IR: You're not saying you're hard to work with?

GH: No I'm not, I think I'm quite easy to work with. What I'm saying is that when you are used to doing your own thing, sometimes it can be quite hard to co-present because if something goes wrong, and stuff does go very wrong on live stuff, the buck has to stop with one person, so rather than looking round to see who's going to take this, I quite like being in control of it, is what I'm saying.

IR: You mentioned Caron earlier. It's been well documented how much you've publicly spoken about Caron. Do you still think of her every day?

GH: All the time.

IR: Really?

GH: All the time. A letter I received in the first week after Caron died, which I thought was really harsh and I almost tore it up, said "I lost my son 15 years ago and I tell you", after of course the woman had said how sorry she was to hear Caron had died, "I'd like to tell you it'll get better, but it won't", and I'm thinking "oh my God", at the time you selfishly think nobody else has ever gone through this because you are in such deep grief and you just think that nobody else could have felt the way that I feel at the minute, but of course you realise very quickly that that's not the case and we had over 8,000 letters when Caron died.

But she said that "eventually you will learn to live around it and through it", and she's been proven right, you cannot fill the deep dark hole that I talk about in the book, nor would you want to because this is your child and you can't replace that child and you wouldn't want to replace that child.

Eventually what you have to do is to live around it and through it and skirt around it because that hole never gets filled and you are climbing up it all the time because just when you think you are up the top of it all the time you are not, you go back down it for the odd day and you have to climb out of it again.

But what has changed and what I've learned, which is quite a privilege in a way, it's not the way I'd like to have learned it, but I've heard many, many people over the years saying how the spirit goes on after you die, and I have witnessed Caron's spirit living on in her children, and that has been an amazing thing to experience and watch, and very comforting in its own way, but it doesn't take away the pain and the loss, it doesn't take away me thinking of Caron all the time, but when I see her deliciously wicked sense of humour in Charlie who is now nearly 15

IR: You can see her living on?

GH: I can, I am witnessing it at the minute. That in its own way, privilege, seems like a strange word to use, but it's a great, tremendous learning curve which is all part of my own healing and coping mechanism.

IR: When you did the book, were you not worried about people accusing you of cashing in?

GH: No, I wasn't because, you know, at the beginning I finished what Caron had started, she had started two books, so the first book was, that she wanted to write a book about what she had learned about cancer during seven years, and she also wanted to write about her upbringing in Ireland, her quirky upbringing, and so really when Russ (Lindsay, Caron's husband) gave me her diaries after, they weren't chronological they were all thought processes and different sections off the computer about Ireland and what have you, which she had written, that's why the books, both books ,are peppered with her own writing, which I've taken from her diaries.

I first of all wanted to pay tribute to Caron, I wanted to finish what she had started and thirdly I wanted her story to be there for her children because nobody else was alive who knew her story from beginning to end because her father had died already, I was the only person left alive and I felt fortunate enough to be asked to put her story within covers, so that whenever Charlie and Gabriel want to know all the details about what she was like as a child, what she was like at uni, why did she fight so hard, how hard did she fight to stay alive for them, what she thought about them because she had written about them in her own diaries. I'd love to have a piece of writing about what my Mum felt the day I was born, you know, and so on Charlie's birthday, not last year, the year before, we were sitting in a little café in Cornwall where they were living and they keep books on the shelves and our book was on the shelf and Charlie lifted it off the shelf and I was able to open it at the point where Caron wrote so beautifully about the day he was born, so how fantastic for him to sit on his birthday and read what his mother had written about him that day.

IR: Not many kids would have that.

GH: No, and also the royalties have been put into a fund for Charlie and Gabriel anyway and so I wasn't cashing in on anything.

IR: You must have ummed and ahed about it?

GH: Oh, I thought about it of course, but it was Caron's own writing that made me make the decision in the end to write them, because it was what she wanted to do, and I just finished what she wanted to do really.

The second book more or less dictated itself in that the response from people to the first book was quite astonishing and I realised that although there are many academic books about facing life after loss, which is our subtitle, that there weren't all that many books about personal experience, from the family experience, because both books have been very honest and very raw really, it's easy to skim over it but there has to be rawness, and what I've found since the second book which is coming out in paperback, is that people write and say, what they always say "thank you for giving me the lightness to open up", because there is a stiff upper lip in the country.

IR: We just sort of get on with it?

GH: I believe that's really bad for your system. The theme of this book is that people live on in the lips of the living, and how awful if you did your job for a period of time, forbid anything happened to you, nobody ever mentioned your name again, nobody ever talked about you in the house, don't talk about him, you know, how awful would that be, and that's why I think it's healthy to get all that emotion out, whether you are talking on a day-to-day level, whether you are talking about anger coming out, whether you are talking about frustration coming out, you've got to get it out of your system, it's no good bottling it up, because I believe it's really damaging to your health. So therefore, culturally there are big differences as to how people deal with grief, there is a stiff upper lip, don't talk about it, let's not mention that name, let's not have photographs around, I think that's the worst scenario. In Ireland we have a different culture people celebrate the life of the person more.

The old stories about setting the coffin up in the corner of the room and having a bit of a party around it, was correct. It may not happen as much these days but that was the philosophy, in fact in the Middle East people wail because that's their culture. Culturally, people deal with grief differently, and I'm only talking about my personal belief. I believe that it's very detrimental to your health to bottle it up.

IR: Should the Englishman adopt the Northern Ireland way?

GH: No, that's oversimplifying it, what I'm saying is that on a general level, I'm not saying it's only English people, I think that there is generally quite a lot of stiff upper lip, but I think Celtic countries are culturally that bit different whether you are in Scotland, Wales or Ireland, I just think they deal with things slightly differently, but that's not to say that some of those are not stiff upper lip as well.

I think men are very bad at talking about their feelings, men won't go to the bar at night and talk about how sad they feel that they lost their wives the previous week, or that their sex life isn't good, or that they are breaking up and divorcing their partners, they will only talk about football and politics and anything but it's just a difference.

Women are better at opening up and I was very lucky that Stephen, my husband, was willing to listen to me, because when you are suffering from grief, you have to have someone around you who's willing to hear you at times, because there is in my mind nothing worse than having all this grief and emotion within you, frustration, anger whatever word you want to put on it, and it varies from day-to-day, and not being able to get it out of your system, because it's just here like a cancer itself festering away. You have to have a system of getting it out, now it doesn't matter who that person is, whether it's your partner or a girlfriend, or just somebody you can talk to, but you have to have somebody to talk to, in my opinion.

IR: Talking about Northern Ireland, with the recent killings, do you think we are back to square one over there?

GH: I don't think we are, I'm praying that we're not, because I think all the young people in Northern Ireland have now got used to what would be deemed normal life, and I don't think the level of hatred and resentment of division is there the way it was before. I'd say that in the older generation a lot of it is deep rooted and still there, but young people, you know, if you go to Belfast, every time I go back I am amazed it is a really buzzy, young, vibrant city, so many wine bars, clubs, restaurants of all different types, it's absolutely fantastic, and so young people love their life now and I don't think, I hope it won't anyway.

I think it's only a tiny, tiny fraction of people who would want to create it again like this alleged wing of the IRA or whatever. But I also think that the politicians who were involved early on are now enjoying their status.

I think Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams and a lot of other politicians I could mention, I think they are now enjoying their status as ministers and involved with that level of politics and I don't think they want to return to it either.

IR: Have you ever considered getting involved in politics over there?

GH: I used to sit and look at politicians every night presenting on TV and thinking "why would you want to do this job?". No, no I would not want to be a politician. I love issues and I quite like debating issues.

The Alan Titchmarsh programme is a joy because I go on there once a week and because I'm not the interviewer I'm the interviewee for my opinions, and so when you are the interviewer you've got to sit on the fence a bit and you can be devil's advocate and you can go either way, but when you are there as a commentator you can just say exactly how you feel about any subject, and I love that.

IR: Presenting has to be neutral, would you rather be outspoken?

GH: No I don't prefer it, no. My job is interviewing but it's a nice change to be able to say what you think. What you really think, without having to be politically correct.

IR: Ok, I'll agree with you there.

GH: You have to be politically correct. Yeah you do. You know it's like the Jonathan Ross thing, I know that if I went on Alan Titchmarsh's programme and said I'm "Effing mad", I'd never be invited back, so broadcasters have to be responsible for what comes out of here, otherwise you have to be prepared to take the consequences.

IR: You talked about Cornwall earlier. Now you are one of those dreadful people who has a second home in Cornwall.

GH: There are second homes all over the country, not just in Cornwall, all over the country and I bought mine for an emotional reason, to be near Caron because Caron was living in Cornwall. She made a life change to Cornwall, we immediately got involved in Cornish life and local issues like Orange masts going up in the school grounds and all of that. So we made ourselves part of issues and politics in Cornwall and tried to blend in with the local community and also just to be near her but not to be living in her house.

Who knows whether I will go on keeping that second home or not. I bought mine not just because it was in Cornwall it was because it was near my daughter who was living there at the time, so I bought it with good reasons, but, I don't know I've never got involved in that argument and I just think people are entitled to have a second home here, if they want to and they can afford to do it then why not?

IR: Have I asked any questions yet that you have not been asked before?

GH: Err, I've not been asked about Cornwall before.

IR: You have been in Sevenoaks since 1982. How has it changed?

GH: How has it changed? I love Sevenoaks to start with and I'm always being told I'm leaving it, but I'm not. I like its position in terms of being close enough to London but being far enough out. I hate it when I see empty shops and there have been times over the years I've been here when the High Street looked pretty sad.

IR: There are quite a few at the moment.

GH: Obviously with the credit crunch churning away. I think the new centre (Bligh's Meadow) down there has been a great addition, I've never got tired of Sevenoaks and I'm so thrilled that the cinema's open, I've been in at least once or twice a week, I love it. I think it's a very nice community and it's a very nice position and the change swings, sometimes it looks more affluent than others, or more busy, but healthy and busy.

IR: Vibrant, yes.

GH: And vibrant, you know, and I think that it has been very vibrant, I think with the addition of Blighs, I think that was a great addition and I use that a lot, shopping around.

IR: I'm interviewing the owner of Blighs. Are there any questions that you'd have for him?

GH: Err, no because I think they've done a very good job.

IR: He'll be glad to hear that.

GH: I think they've got a very good mix of shops down there. Stephen and I go down there quite a lot, I love the little markets, I think they could expand the markets a bit, I love that and think it's very tasteful. I like the mix of shops like Marks and also the coffee shops and the little Italian shop where you can buy some things, it's got a really good mix, I buy a lot of shoes in there, I have a pair of boots that I bought in that Italian shop that I could have sold a million times over in posh places in the City. They say "where did you get those boots?" and I go "Blighs in Sevenoaks" and I think that's a great addition.

I think it's really important that the cinema and theatre stays open because that used to depress me when I looked at it when it as closed, and I love it now it's open, we went the other night and it was jumping, it was terrific.

IR: What did you see then?

GH: I saw The Boat That Rocked and I saw Frost/Nixon. Have you seen it?

IR: No I haven't.

GH: Have you not supported your local cinema?

IR: I was at the theatre the other night for Princess Ida.

GH: Was that good?

IR: Yes it was excellent.

GH: Excellent.

IR: Actually we had a reader's question about the Stag. Are you able to provide any support for the Stag now it's up and running again? (Question from Mike Hume, Fen Meadow Ightham)

GH: Well I am supporting it.

IR: You were there for the Friends of the Stag launch.

GH: Yes I was, and also I support it by going to it and paying money into it. That's the best way to support it isn't it?

IR: Were you aware, by the way, that your fame in Sevenoaks is so wide that if someone sends a letter to 'Gloria Hunniford, Sevenoaks', it gets to you?

GH: I know, it's so nice, but then you see all our Foundation mail comes here as well, and so we get a lot of mail and I am aware actually, in fact I got one once that all it had on it was 'Kent'.

IR: Really?

GH: And it got to me so I was very chuffed about that, and the postal service is very, very good here, they are very good actually. We do get a lot of mail because of the Foundation as well as personal mail.

IR: I might test that by putting 'Gloria, Kent' and 'Gloria, Sevenoaks' and see if it gets to you.

GH: It was great.

IR: You told the Telegraph recently that you were no happier today, with money, than you were as a child in Northern Ireland. Is that true?

GH: Did I say that? No, I tell you, what I think I said was that I am very fortunate to have had a very, very happy childhood. I was never in doubt that I was loved and I realise that more and more as I get older.

I'm asked by journalists like yourself and the Telegraph, you don't think about it when you are a child because it's just what you have and what you are, and you don't know any different. In hindsight I had really well nigh perfect parents, my mother was a stay at home mother, my father, we didn't have very much money, but we never went short of anything, and anything we did go short of I bought it myself because I worked since I was eight remember.

IR: You paid for your books and uniform to go to grammar school.

GH: I did, yes I did, I had to pay. It amuses me when I hear children say "I want to do this" and "I want to do that", and I don't know what it is, but I fought for the right to go to grammar school because my parents didn't have much money, when I said I wanted to go, they said they said "we can't afford it, can't afford the uniform, can't afford the books, can't afford the sports equipment and I thought "I'll pay for them myself" because I was making money singing.

You will remember that then girls weren't really encouraged to have further education anyway, it was a real privilege, you have to come from a really rich family to go onto university because my father would have said "well you sister went to the local technical college, she's a legal secretary and she's done very well, why do you want to be a teacher, no do you want to be a doctor no, so why would you want further education?" that was the philosophy.

GH: And I don't know why I fought for it but I really fought my parents and in the end went and also fought to go to Canada. Don't know why, I do know why actually, but I used to fight the system, I used to buck the system.

IR: You should be a politician.

GH: But not sure why sometimes, you know, it's interesting the people, the kind of svengalis that hit your life, but you don't realise it at the time, as a child of nine, my great uncle whom I had never heard of, never seen in my life, arrived in from Canada and I came home from school one day, we had a very long path up to our front door and he was standing there, beautiful looking man, white hair, and my mum said "this is your great uncle Jim from Canada", and I was only nine. This man arrived weaving all these fantastic countries about this country I really knew very little about, he represented the land of milk and honey, it was still rationing after the war years, he brought marshmallows and sweets and angel cake and things we'd never had, and so I think in my childish mind I saw Canada as being the place I had to go to, and so as soon as I was just going on 18 I really bucked the system and went.

It was quite a brave thing then, I went on my own, albeit my great uncle was in Canada, so my parents let me go on the grounds that I'd come back for Christmas, which I did. You did everything your parents told you then, even though you buck the system, but it's one of the best things I ever did in my life, because it broadened my horizon, it taught me that all nationalities and creeds and colours could live together and work together perfectly. It taught me a bit about the size of the place I came from. My uncle, the first thing he said to me in the car was "how big do you think Canada is?" I said "I've no idea, it's been a long trip though to get here." And he said, "how big do you think Ireland is?" And I went "oh it's big I'll take you about, may be three days to drive it" and he took a map out and he said "this is Lake Superior" and he said " you could put all of Ireland in there with room left over." And it was the first time in my life that I realised how small a place I had come from.

IR: It must have made you want to go back home.

GH: Well no, I was so excited by it. I think it was also influenced by movies. We had three cinemas in our town and they changed their programmes three times a week, so we saw movies all the time and at a stage when we had no fridges, no washing machines, none of these American movies, these wonder kitchens and big fridges, soda bars.

IR: A cliched question then, what film is your favourite?

GH: Breakfast at Tiffany's. Audrey Hepburn, I love Audrey Hepburn, that's my wet Sunday film.

But there are influences throughout your life that you are not conscious of at the time but they go deep in. I had never anticipated broadcasting at all, but the man who asked me, I had made a record and I went in to be interviewed about the record and he rang me up the next day, a man called Dan Gilbert at BBC Northern Ireland, and he said to me "have you ever thought about broadcasting?" and I went "no, not ever". I was going to be a singer that was my bag because I had just made my record and he said to me "you're never short of a word or two, you might like it."

He said "could you come and see me tomorrow?" which I did and he gave me an audition to do which I was really, really affronted at, because after all I hadn't asked him for an appointment, he'd asked me to come in and he asked me to do this interview because somebody was leaving, of course non prep, I didn't know anything about prep and I just thought it was a rubbish interview and I remember saying to my mother, who I had left in the car at the front door, and I said to her "I blew it".

So he rang up again that night and he said "when could you start?" and I went "how about tomorrow?" That was it. The first day I went in, going back to the point of the people you meet along the way who influence you but you don't realise it, he said to me "oh by the way don't think you're coming in to do the women's things like knitting and sewing and soft items, remember you are as good as any of these blokes sitting in this newsroom" and he said "you will go out and you will do your interviews along with them and you will be just as good if not better."

And I'd never thought about that really, I would never thought about it, but he planted in my mind that day that I was as good as any bloke, so sexism has never been one of my issues.

Ageism has never been one of my issues, now that's not to say maybe behind my back somebody might say "she might be too old for the job" but I don't think like that and I've never been subjected to ageism because I'm still working and I've never been subjected, openly anyway, to "am I as good as him to do it? Yes I am." But that was implanted in my mind by that guy so it's very lucky that he gave me the opportunity.

I get masses of letters from young people saying "how do you get into telly" and I was so lucky that I was just asked to do it, but the one thing, the advice I always give to them is, whatever you want to do in broadcasting, be focused on whatever it is because there's nothing a television company wants less than saying "why would you like this job" "oh well we just want to be on the telly" "what would you really like to do?" "oh I don't mind, I'll produce, I'll be upfront." They don't want to hear that, they want to hear you're focused.

IR: Going back to what you were saying about you being as good as any man, you've always been a very strong role model for females.

GH: Well not consistently, I may have as a by-product, I just do what I do, everything has been because I have been asked to do it, I've never had a plan. I did plan to be a singer, I never planned to go into broadcasting, it was offered, I never planned to come to London, it was offered. I never planned anything and I'm still not planning anything in as much as this new series just came with a phone call on my mobile.

IR: Do you think you are a role model for women?

GH: I suppose I think I've shown a certain strength that some people write to me about, but that's only because I've had to, I've had no option. A lot of, going back to that deep hole, it's obviously the worse fear and the lowest I've ever been in my life and it was, and still is, very hard to climb out, and it's still a daily issue of dealing with it, but I've done it by keeping myself busy, which is a bit of advice I received again from one of those 8,000 letters. One woman said "get yourself a new project, keep busy, keep your head busy" and she's right because on the day that I do have that 'no deadline day' that's the day that my mind wanders off more than any.

Other days when you're working you're focusing because you have to, and so keeping busy is one of my means of coping, to be honest. So if I have been a role model for any woman I am very flattered by that and I suppose that some people will write and say that I've shown a certain strength, that's only because I happen to be doing a job in the public eye. Loads of other people do it.

IR: If you could change one thing about Sevenoaks what would it be?

GH: One thing about Sevenoaks, wow, that's a good one, let me come back to that one.

IR: Ok.

GH: Oh, take down that big building down, I think it absolutely ruins Sevenoaks.

IR: The BT building?

GH: Yes. I don't know what the local feeling is about that but I thought that ruined the vision of Sevenoaks myself. I went away to Australia when Caron was ill, came back three months later and I couldn't believe the framework, and when I first came to Sevenoaks you drive up that hill and you could see the horizon, you can see trees. I just cannot understand the planning behind that building at all, not any of it, and I think the screening of it, they haven't done anything to try and screen it off from the side. From the front it looks actually quiet nice.

IR: Oh yes?

GH: It always looks as though it's empty, maybe it's not, but I just think that was a huge planning mistake, the enormity of it.

IR: I like it but it's in the wrong place, it should be in London.

GH: Well it's in the wrong spot, and also to have tagged on the huge parking space alongside, it elongates the building and the car park seems to go for miles and it dominates the entire horizon of Sevenoaks, it has ruined, in my opinion, the approach to Sevenoaks.

IR: Ok. Do you regret now with the wonderful benefit of hindsight, having sold the rights to your wedding to Hello!, only for OK! to take sneaky pictures?

GH: No.

IR: You never complained, I noticed.

GH: No because it is what it is. We agreed to do a photo shoot and you're not talking fortunes, I'm not going to talk about money anyway, but you're not talking about the Beckhams, we agreed that we would do the wedding as much as a convenience for us to have all the photographs and everything taken, but we couldn't have anticipated that somebody would steal the photographs and that wasn't our issue.

IR: It must have upset you surely, to see your face on the cover of a magazine that you hadn't allowed them to use.

GH: Well, it didn't, it didn't, because we'd given our word, we didn't do anything wrong, so I felt regret that somebody at our wedding whom I would have deemed a friend had actually gone as far as actually doing that, but beyond that I couldn't do anything, what could I do about it, it was nothing to do with us in that sense, but it was disappointing that somebody at the wedding actually took the photographs and gave them to somebody else.

IR: Is that a lesson for you on how this industry can work sometimes?

GH: Not really because it is just what it is, I'm afraid, you know, it's a very cut throat business amongst paparazzi, and amongst magazines and I think that as long as you honour what you have agreed to do, what can you do really?

IR: Tell me about your clash with Bob Ogley (former Chronicle editor) over the Great Storm. This was well before my time but there was an issue where there was a letter criticising the fact that it was you who planted the trees or something.

GH: I don't even remember that, so unimportant I don't remember. Obviously I dealt with it. There again, you know, I'm a great believer that things are what they are, we were asked to plant a tree, Caron and I did it, end of story. That's it. I genuinely don't remember that at all. I remember planting the tree, it was a great honour to do it, but I don't remember the criticism at all.

IR: How has your relationship been with the Chronicle?

GH: I think it's been fine over the years, I'm not at home all time but I've never had any issue. I suppose the only issue was the time we had a genuinely very family party which was from age four to 94 and I think it was somebody in the Chronicle that sold the story about noise to the national press.

IR: Oh really?

GH: Yeah, that's my only issue.

IR: That's before my time.

GH: Before your time, you know, so I wasn't terribly pleased with them then. It was a very innocent party and of course the national press made it sound like a rave.

IR: You talked about going to grammar school, presumably you're therefore in favour of the selection system.

GH: Yes, I am. I think it filters out children who are with a natural aptitude, with a good aptitude for. I'm a great believer in education full stop and if you ask me if I'm in favour of further education. What was your questions about grammar schools?

IR: About the whole grammar school issue and as to whether all grammar schools should be scrapped and we should just rely on state schools?

GH: Well, I don't go along with that myself, it would be a very lovely system if all state schools were perfect, and there are some brilliant state schools, and I think if you are lucky enough to be in an area where you have a good state school on your doorstep that's fine, but there are a lot of inner city schools that are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and I've never had to live in an inner city, but I do know some of the stories journalistically, and I feel therefore that it's a bit like private insurance.

I think the National Health system is a wonderful system, albeit it's got weaknesses at the moment, but I think if you have enough money to have a private insurance policy why not. That's just the way I look at it and I think if I want to pay for a private insurance policy for hospital treatment over and above spending on a holiday to the Caribbean well then I think that's my prerogative.

IR: Final question, it's your birthday on Friday.

GH: It is, absolutely.

IR: I won't sing to you because people are listening. You've said previously that you would consider plastic surgery.

GH: I haven't had it yet. But I would consider it. I did say I would but while Caron was ill and because I've seen so much of what I call genuine medical situations, and my husband had a heart attack about nine years ago and all of that, I've not yet had the guts to do it because having watched people who needed treatment by doctors for real reasons I just thought that for me to have cosmetic stuff and vanity stuff done was a bit beyond, but I'm getting to the stage when I think it might be right.

IR: Would you not lose credibility with your fans?

GH: No I think nowadays it's alright. I would never do Botox, I would never put poison in my body, wouldn't do that, but I would consider actually having a little bit. Well it used to be a touchy subject but it's not anymore, practically everyone had it.

IR: But you don't need it, you're sitting here in front of me, you're in your 60s...

GH: Well when I think I'll need it then I'll have it, let me put it like that. As I say it used to be I couldn't even think about it because when you have real issues in front of you vanity's the last thing. You wouldn't even think about it, you know, in fact when you have a real issue like Caron for seven years fighting, your own health and everything is the last priority because you would do anything to swap.

I would have given anything to take what Caron had and let her live on, so therefore your own health is not even on the Richter Scale, you're only thinking in this case about your child, and so therefore it wasn't even in the framework. It's only recently that I've thought to myself "well if I continue in this business, maybe I will have a wee tweak". I tell you how far I've got with it, I might go and have a consultation.

IR: Would that be to preserve your career though or for your own peace of mind?

GH: Just for me, I can honestly say I try to keep myself in reasonable shape, but I'm not a perfect anything, I'm not a perfect size anything, so I do the job I do and I've done it that way all my career and so I don't pound at the gym six days a week because I look better on TV. I would look better on TV if I did it, but I don't, and so I just kind of look after what I have to the best of my ability and try my hardest because it is obviously a very visual image and I do my best, so I wouldn't rule out what you're talking about, but I haven't planned it, let me put it like that. It's like Bond, Never Say Never.

IR: So it's not on your birthday list?

GH: Definitely not, not on my birthday list, no, I haven't asked for it as a present.