Gloria Hunniford: My Life - The Autobiography

Book excerpt: As one of Britain's best known TV and radio personalities, Gloria Hunniford requires little introduction. From chat show and current affairs host to presenter of consumer and lifestyle programmes, Gloria is one of the few broadcasters who can genuinely claim to embrace the spectrum of popular culture. Her elusive ability to communicate with people from all walks and backgrounds has earned her a rare iconic status in the hearts and minds of the British public. Now, having just been made an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours and celebrating 70 years in show-business, Gloria is ready to tell her story. With an illustrious career spanning seven decades, as Gloria says herself, 'Even that wide-eyed, ambitious ten-year-old girl from Portadown, County Armagh would never have believed that sixty-seven years later she'd still be in show business'. Gloria has had many lives - starting out as a singer aged seven alongside her father in a troupe of entertainers, before taking the brave step to travel and live in Canada as a teenager, which broadened her horizons in a way she never could have imagined, coming from a religiously divided Northern Ireland. Back home at the age of twenty, following the release of her first record that went into the Ulster charts, she was offered a job at BBC Belfast, which started her on a career trajectory she could only have dreamed about in those early years singing in front of her Bakelite radio, hoping someone would hear her. Working through bombs, bullets and barricades, and the turmoil of the Troubles in the seventies, Gloria soon became a firm fixture on both radio and TV, especially with her nightly show, Good Evening Ulster. It wasn't long before Gloria's charm, wit and tenacity were spotted over the Irish sea, becoming the first ever woman to have a daily radio programme in 1982, presenting on BBC Radio 2 continuously for the next 13 years. She was then offered her first chat show and Sunday, Sunday launched her into the homes of millions of people, as she interviewed some of the greatest stars of our time, including Bette Davis, Charlton Heston, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn and Sean Connery. Since then, Gloria's career has blossomed, and she has become widely regarded as one of the most respected names in the industry. And with her extremely moving and sentimental account of her daughter's battle with cancer - in the best-selling books Next To You and Always With You - Gloria has sealed her reputation as one of the nation's most respected writers and commentators. More recently known for being a panellist on Loose Women and presenting the daily consumer programme Rip-Off Britain, she has entered the hearts of the nations and will continue to do so for years to come. In My Life Gloria will, for the first time, explore her life from her humble beginnings to the much-loved national treasure she is today.