What are your memories of the show as a viewer?
"I will always remember watching TOTP when I was about 10, 11, 12. It had a great influence on my life because as far as I was concerned, if you didn’t watch TOTP, you didn’t know what was going on. We weren’t particularly a family. I was the eldest and I didn’t have older brothers or sisters and my mum and dad really weren’t into pop music. So as far as I was concerned TOTP told me everything I needed to know. I had this little tape recorder for a present and every Thursday when TOTP came on, I’d put this tape recorder right next to the television and I’d record all the songs. Afterwards, my sister and I would stand in front of a big mirror that was in my mum and dad’s bedroom and we would get the microphone and we’d pretend to sing along. I believed I was going to grow up and be Olivia Newton-John, The Osmonds, David Cassidy, it was that sort of era."

What sort of clothes did you wear then?

"I remember it was an era when everybody was having crocheted skirts and little sort of crocheted jackets and ponchos and things like that. I learned to crochet and I got my mum to make me this crocheted skirt because I’d seen a girl on TOTP wearing one, and I thought that was ‘it’."

Tell us how important it was for you to present TOTP.
"When I got the phone call from the producer of TOTP to say "would I like to come and do a show", I was doing Saturday morning television. It was a call out of the blue because I wasn’t a Radio 1 DJ and at the time TOTP and Radio 1 were very much interlinked. It was quite unusual really to be asked and I was very honoured. I couldn’t contain my excitement because, of course, this was a show that I had watched from being a child. It was just like a dream come true."

Why do you think they chose you?

"I’m not quite sure. I think probably I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. They needed to represent women really on TOTP and so I got the job."

So we come to your first show in 1988 with Simon Mayo, what are your memories of that actual day?
"Simon Mayo’s a consummate professional and I sort of knew Simon because we were managed by the same company. I sort of felt that I was in safe hands and I remember I kept on saying to myself 'contain your excitement'. I just remember it as one of those sort of moments in my career that I will never forget. Standing there at Television Centre next to Simon Mayo, a big Radio 1 DJ, and having the microphone in my hand. It’s like your wedding day and it just goes (clicks fingers) like that. It’s like things that happen in your life and you think, "I wish I could just hold on to this moment and contain it". I was incredibly excited. So proud."