Читать книгу Fearne Cotton - The Biography - Nigel Goodall - Страница 11

‘I’m not paid to look like a supermodel – I’m paid to talk. As long as I’m doing my job and improving each week then I’d rather gauge my success on that level.’

The first time Fearne Cotton featured in the Radio Times, it was July 1998 and she was pictured in her school uniform. Not that that was how viewers of Diggit were used to seeing her; but when she wasn’t presenting the Saturday morning weekend show on GMTV, she was at school revising for her most important exams: ‘When I started on the show we were doing our GCSEs, but somehow we managed to find time to revise.’

Although her co-presenter Paul Ballard, known on screen as ‘Des’, was familiar with combining school with his television work, having spent five years working on The Disney Club before Fearne won her audition, she herself was not so experienced. Working in television was all relatively new for her, even though, by all accounts, she didn’t have any trouble mixing her educational revision with learning lines for when she was on screen. But it was, she says, a lot more difficult when the show went live: ‘It was scary, because you know you’ve got to get it right first time and it’s hard to say your lines when someone is giving you instructions in your earpiece. But it’s just practice, really.’

Indeed, Diggit was an ideal opportunity for her to familiarise herself with the technical side of live television. It taught her how to deal with incidences such as having a voice yelling down an earpiece while she was supposed to talk directly to a camera. That alone may well have been infuriating, but her biggest problem was the early morning starts. Usually she had to be up at 4am and in the studio by 5.10am.

It probably helped that she didn’t actually need that much sleep. ‘As long as I’ve had six hours, I’m all right,’ she once said. There were times, she says, when she would even go to work having had no sleep at all. And even that was okay, she continues, up to a point: ‘I know that I can do it if I really have to.’ But then again, she is, by her own admission, not a natural morning person, ‘but I’ve adapted to become one because I’ve had to get up at ridiculous hours of the morning’. Most journalists and photographers who have worked with her agree that her best time is around midday. That is, they say, when she is really chirpy.

With or without sleep, exercise is something else that helps keep her bubbly: ‘Sometimes I’ll be really good and go to the gym but then when I’m working I don’t always have time. I do like running, because I’m inside a studio most of the day, so it’s good to get out and get some fresh air. I’m a trained dancer so I like to go to dance classes when I can as well.’ Despite her slender figure, which she says she is generally happy with, this is not something she has had to work at. Neither does she have to worry too much about her diet: ‘I just tend to eat when I’m hungry, although I do try to eat healthily and I am a vegetarian.’

She has been vegetarian ever since she watched a programme on live animal transportation when she was just eleven years old. That was then she decided, ‘That’s it, no more burgers for us, and my mum and I haven’t eaten meat since. It also inspired me to get involved with animal charities.’ In many ways, she says, she has Linda McCartney to thank for her decision, although she agrees that it’s up to the individual whether they want to be vegetarian or not: ‘For those of us who are, she helped raise awareness. I could tell from an early age that she was a good role model, a great campaigner and an amazing pioneer.’

She still admits to having cravings for the not-so-healthy goodies. One of these is Müller rice and the other is Jaffa Cakes: ‘I’ve had cravings in the middle of the night before and have had to go to the petrol station for a Müller rice, that’s how much I love them. If I’m working late, I do get really tired and a bit run-down and then I usually get a cold. It goes in phases, though. In the run-up to Christmas, I’m very busy but then I get a couple of weeks off to recover.’ One of her pet hates when she does get a cold is Lemsip. According to her MySpace blog, it makes her slightly trippy, and all over the shop. ‘That stuff knocks me out. I feel like my head is wrapped in a fuzzy warm blanket,’ she laughs.

Fearne signed up to MySpace in November 2005, and, in the time since then she has collected a network of almost 60,000 MySpace friends, who seem to be mostly fans, although she does have a few celebrity mates in her Top 20 friends as well, such as Reggie Yates, Christopher Parker and boyfriend Jesse Jenkins. She is said to adore the idea of logging on regularly to update her blogs, blurbs, interests, music, pictures and other typical MySpace features and reading the comments that are left for her to see. ‘I love MySpace,’ she told CosmoGirl magazine in December 2006, almost a year after she first started to log on to the website. ‘But there are tons of fake Fearnes on there,’ she complained. One, she continues, has a ‘dodgy page pretending to be me … so feel free to go on there and tell them to get lost and that they are a big fake! This is the only real page. I’m the only one who has access to it and I do check my own mails, so keep them coming, lovelies, and ignore the big old faker!’ And as if to guide those who were interested to the right page, she even gave out her MySpace account number to make sure there was no confusion. The presence of fake celebrities on MySpace, however, had been steadily growing since the social networking website went live and online in 1998 and she was not alone in her concern.

In America, for instance, where MySpace was started, it wasn’t long before users realised how easy it was to become ‘friends’ with such stars as Paris Hilton, Jenna Jameson, Hilary Duff and Madonna, to name but just a few. The profiles were real, but be warned, advised American Fox News correspondent Holly McKay, ‘Your new celebrity friend may be a faux. Any Fred or Frannie, it seems, can fake stardom on the web, and sometimes even the most cyber-savvy surfers will fall for it.’

Entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Donald Trump, for example, have more than thirty poser profiles, while media magnets like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton appear in their hundreds. ‘There are a lot of problems with predators who pretend to be celebrities,’ said Parry Aftab, executive director of wiredsafety.org, a site that provides help, safety information and education to Internet and mobile device users. ‘Anybody can pretend to be anybody they want and set up a profile. MySpacers need to recognise that they are often being conned. This is illegal.’

Despite the fact that it is virtually impossible to pull the plug completely on all pseudo profiles, the big names themselves are working on the problem. In America pop star Nick Lachey isn’t happy that his song, ‘What’s Left Of Him’, is the best way to describe the multiple personalities he is meant to have, due to the vast number of varying profiles online. He is currently working with wiredsafety to establish a programme that will involve putting a stamp of certification on genuine celebrity profiles across the web world.

American celebrity Montel Williams was also shocked to discover three people claiming to be him on MySpace. ‘This can be very damaging to one’s career,’ Aftab disclosed. ‘As a father, Montel was very upset with how he was depicted on one of the pages. Another fraud page was so clever and so accurate that even he was surprised. Sometimes it can be very hard to decipher what is real and what is not.’

Unfortunately for many famous people targeted in these socialising scams, their Internet imitators can bring about real-life repercussions. San Francisco public TV host Josh Kornbluth was the prey of a pretend profile containing offensive sexual references discreetly laced throughout. In June 2007 managers at his employer, KQED, received anonymous emails from people who said they saw the profile and demanded Kornbluth be fired.

Clearly, a nasty fraud site can hurt a star. But if you think that there’s no harm in setting up a site that simulates a celebrity in a supportive and non-defamatory way, think again. ‘Just in getting hits on your space by pretending to be someone famous, you are benefiting commercially and that’s illegal,’ said Aftab. ‘By all means set up a fan site, but don’t pretend to actually be somebody you are not.’

So what spurs Net users to set up these bogus bios? ‘Some fans do it out of flattery, not realising what they’re doing is wrong,’ said Australia-based media and communications specialist Stephanie Woods. ‘Others want to satisfy their alter egos or experience what it may be like to lead a “better” life. As for the defamatory profiles, they usually stem from somebody who wants to vent their dislike of a particular person.’

That said, an increasing number of real celebrities are setting up in cyberspace. ‘It’s a way of reaching your fan base on an interpersonal level,’ said Louise Kellman, a San Francisco-based PR consultant and self-confessed MySpace junkie. ‘Celebrities are allowing people to get a sense of what goes on when the cameras aren’t rolling. Fans really identify with that.’ And when it comes to developing a drove of devotees, social networking sites seem to be working.

‘People from all ages, from all walks of life, are hooked on this phenomenon and it’s rising rapidly,’ Kellman continued. ‘So it’s obvious why more and more celebs are jumping on the bandwagon. It provides them with an extra opportunity for self-promotion, the chance to stay in touch with their fanbase and of course encourages their community to participate in buying merchandise, downloading their music or going to watch their movie. Best of all, it doesn’t cost a thing to set up.’

But how can ordinary fans separate the stars from the imposters? ‘It’s safest to always assume it’s a fake,’ said Jordan McAuley, founder of contactanycelebrity.com. ‘Genuine profiles should always have official management contact details so you can verify their validity with them.’ Aftab also advises social networkers to steer clear of anyone claiming to be a star or a close friend of a celebrity and says celebrities’ publicity reps are undergoing specialist training in how to handle these hiccups. What is interesting is that while MySpace officials don’t scout around for fake pages, if they receive a complaint from the victim of a falsified profile, they will immediately remove that page.

Despite the sea of scammers surfing the Net, if you understand what is real, the revolution of MySpace and other social networking sites can closely connect you with your idols and bring about a whole new family of friends. ‘It’s bridging the gap between the fans and the famous,’ Kellman explains.

But then again, it has also become an enormous public relations accessory for many celebrities. In fact, it was once claimed that some of Lily Allen’s fame was in part due to her being promoted on MySpace. In response to an interview question in which she was asked if she was discovered by MySpace, Allen argued, that no, that was ‘not accurate at all! I had a record deal before I set up my MySpace account so that really couldn’t be further from the truth.’

Even though she was sounding off about colds and flu and detesting Lemsip on MySpace, Fearne doesn’t appear to have suffered that many colds. Well, not when she is on camera, at least, and certainly not for the year when she was presenting Diggit. It was a typical children’s show that began in 1998 and replaced Saturday Disney and the Sunday morning Disney Club, from where Fearne got her start. The programme usually aired from 7 to 9am on Saturdays and from 8am on Sundays. Initially the programme was presented by Fearne and ‘Des’ and made up of Disney cartoons, old and new, plus celebrity guests, games and features. Even at its best, it was all pretty predictable fare for what one would expect from an early morning television programme for young viewers, but for Fearne there were some embarrassing moments.

One that she particularly remembers was the challenge in the forest: ‘There were all these quad bikers and I had to run through them and in between some cones. I was being really cocky and sprinting like Pamela Anderson down the muddy track and my foot got caught on this cone and I went flying, splat on my back. I was absolutely covered in mud.’

What was most interesting about the show, though, is how none of the other presenters, before or after Fearne, managed to get themselves a career quite like the one she now has. In fact, these days no one ever hears of them. So, whatever raw qualities she possessed, they were enough to turn her into a star while the experience did nothing of the sort for any of the others who started out on the same programme.

Not even the search launched by GMTV in September 1998 to find an additional presenter in the same way as they discovered Fearne two years earlier in a national talent hunt, most likely through an ad in the Stage, brought forth anyone quite like her. Once again, viewers had the chance to vote for a winner three months after the search began. The winner turned out to be Jack Stratton. For a time he joined ‘Des’ and Fearne to co-host both the Saturday and Sunday shows before becoming solo presenter of pre-recorded inserts for the Sunday slot. Although he left in the same year as Fearne departed from Diggit, the show continued to run on under the flagship of Laura Jaye and Victoria Hickson, but again, they would never enjoy the sort of success or popularity that Fearne earned for herself on the show and elsewhere.

As she would later comment, many children’s TV presenters somehow sink without trace after rising from nowhere in the first place. It’s similar to tinseltown Hollywood, which is littered with the corpses of child stars who one day woke to the news that they were ageing and tried to change tack before it was too late. Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, Margaret O’Brien, and, more recently, characters such as Home Alone’s Macaulay Culkin, Corey Haim from Silver Bullet and Goonies’ effervescent Kerri Green were a few, although the list is endless. Even if some of them, such as Jodie Foster and Winona Ryder, continued their work on movies into maturity, their careers were never the same. It was as if the screen itself could not forgive talented precocity in actors so young. The same can be said of children’s presenters, but for Fearne it was different: look back over her career and it’s easy to work out why she has survived beyond the children’s shows. She is upbeat, bubbly, entrancing and full of vitality. There is something very 60s and counterculture about her. And she certainly has a very different approach to presenting to any other broadcaster – it is almost ‘in your face’ but also quite organic and completely unique.

But not everyone thinks the same. Journalist Paul English, writing in Scotland’s Daily Record, considered that to those over the age of fifteen, she is probably just another identikit TV presenter with a snappy line in cutesy patter, crazy dyed hair and a near-nauseating level of enthusiasm straight out of the Vernon Kay book of ‘yeah’ and ‘whoo’-ing. But is that really the case?

In another less-than-complimentary tirade on the Internet, on TV Scoop, online critic and blogger Katie Button wrote that in her opinion Fearne’s image seems to be her one selling point: ‘Young women are supposed to like her, relate to her, want to invite her round to “ours” to eat ice cream, talk about boys and braid each others’ hair. But how can she be one of us when she herself struggles to appropriately adapt her personality for her varying TV gigs? She has the kind of quirkiness that is practised and rehearsed.’ It was, continued Button, ‘the problem with being a female TV presenter at the moment: you perform half-decently at one gig and suddenly you’re booked up until New Year’s Eve 2010. There is such a dearth of proven female talent that once you hit the big time, you’re everywhere. I remain rational enough to know this isn’t Fearne’s fault and that her career is simply benefiting from a fortuitous trend.’

In the flesh, Fearne is taller than expected: about five foot six inches, slim and elegant, with dainty elfin features. She is everything you might expect from a Saturday morning TV presenter: fresh-faced, enthusiastic, with green eyes that are clear and bright and she always smells of a mixture of floral perfume, soap and fabric conditioner.

With no make-up and a whiff of toothpaste on her breath, she once had her hair styled similarly to Kelly Osbourne’s. ‘If I wasn’t working in kids’ TV I think I’d dye all my hair pink or try out Kelly’s Mohican, but I know my bosses would probably chop my head off,’ she admitted. And on the one occasion when she did have some streaks added, she was ‘dead’ pleased: ‘I went into a punk shop in Camden and saw all these different colours, so I picked up the pink, went home and experimented. It got a bit messy and now I’ve got a pink bathroom!’

She has also developed a taste for outrageous clothes, something that comes across whenever she’s on screen: ‘I don’t believe in having to match colours or styles or fabrics. I think you should wear whatever you want. I’m quite spontaneous when it comes to shopping. I don’t go for the classic must-haves like little black dresses. I’ll buy things that will probably only be fashionable for a couple of months but then I can pass it on to friends, a charity shop or even customise it. And I’m a big fan of customising. So if I’ve got something I’ve worn before, I’ll just cut it up, stick a patch on it or paint over it so it looks different. One week I cut off one arm from a long-sleeved T-shirt and bung a stripy legwarmer in its place; I’ll put anything together and see how it looks. I don’t really care if people don’t like my style. If it turns out wrong, at least I’ve had fun trying.’

It was this sort of tomboyish nature and attitude to fashion that made her stand out from other, perhaps less flamboyant presenters of Saturday morning television: ‘I’m more Grunge Chick than Glamour Princess. I can’t do that sexy look – I just don’t feel comfortable if I wear a skirt; I’ll always put a tomboy top on. Tess Daly and Cat Deeley are so glamorous, gorgeous and beautiful that I feel like the clumsy one in comparison. But I don’t really think we’re in some big competition or anything, we’ve got very different styles.’

And even when she’s off-screen it’s pretty much the same: she’s a riot of colour. In 2003 she favoured a typical blue-and-white vest peeping out from beneath a bright pink T-shirt, a Burberry satchel, green flared cords splattered with white paint, a big, funky belt hanging off her hips and bright Converse trainers. And then another time she breezed into a north London restaurant with her blonde hair all mussed up; she was wearing clanking jewellery and had layers of floaty fabrics that appeared to be half-falling off her.

Interestingly enough, her style icon is veteran singer Debbie Harry. At first, this may seem strange when you consider that Harry’s punk band Blondie were at their peak with such hits as ‘Heart of Glass’, ‘Denis’ and ‘Sunday Girl’ two years before Fearne even arrived into the world. And it is perhaps even stranger when you compare her musical tastes to those of her friends. ‘Everything about her was so cool,’ Fearne still raves to this day. ‘That’s why I love vintage. I got four dresses recently for £30 from a shop in Covent Garden called Wow Retro – you can’t get more bargainous than that!’

Equally sacred in her personal iconography was Vivienne Westwood. Ranking her alongside Debbie Harry, she continues, ‘I’ve been a lifelong fan of her clothes and what she stands for. She created punk as a style and a way of thinking, and still sticks by it. She doesn’t follow trends but says, “This is what I’m about” and creates amazing designs. I love how she blends fashions and life; her clothes are almost political. She’s a cool, strong woman and biggest showcase of how to be completely individual.

‘So many young girls feel pressurised to look a certain way and she says, “Do what you want to do.” I met her at the filming of the Queen’s 80th birthday event. I jumped out of my skin when I saw her and staggered over, gushing at her. She was wearing a new badge she’s designed: of a flying willy with sperm coming out of it. The programme producers asked her to remove it and she said, “Absolutely not!” I thought that was wicked.’

In fact, it was Westwood’s approach to individuality that Fearne loved best and this was also something she picked up for herself: ‘I’m a bit of a fashion chameleon – I think it’s good to reinvent yourself every so often. It’s almost as if I have my own little fashion scene going on in my head that doesn’t relate to anything else. I’ll trawl around Brick Lane or Portobello Market in London for some great vintage pieces and then mix them up with the odd bit of Vivienne Westwood or Chanel. Pick and mix is what I like: a touch of something expensive with something really cheap.’

But above all else, she continues, ‘I like to make a statement with what I wear. Hopefully my clothes say that I don’t really care what other people think or what’s going on in “celeb magazine society”. The other day, for no reason at all, my friend and I turned up at a black-tie ball dressed head-to-toe as pirates. We actually looked pretty chic but it was still relatively embarrassing. We are all force-fed an ideal of what we should look like and hopefully what I wear proves that I refuse to subscribe to any of that.

‘I’ve made loads of fashion mistakes in my time – and I still do – but I actually quite enjoy it. Recently I went to this party dressed in some mad eighties outfit: cream spotty top from a junk shop with one sleeve in lace, with this bright pink stretchy skirt, leggings, bright red boots and a massive big chain around my neck. I thought I looked really cool and like I was really expressing myself but the next week I was singled out in one of those magazines saying, “What the hell is she wearing?”

‘At first I used to feel quite stung when I saw negative things about me in the press because I assumed that everyone reading it would agree but these days I really couldn’t care less. If it’s a personal attack about how well I’m doing my job, then that hurts, but when it’s your clothes then it’s just an opinion. As a society we’re programmed to agree that one certain look should be “in” for a certain amount of time, which is actually just a myth created by the fashion industry. It’s important that people are individual and I refuse to play that particular game.’

It’s probably the reason why she launched her own ‘Go Organic with Cotton’ range for New Look in July 2007 that was made available in over 500 high street stores across Britain. And with a surname like Cotton, this was a marketing marriage made in heaven. The collection was aimed squarely at festival-goers and although organic menswear, baby and maternity collections were also made available, the mainstay of the range was for women.

Unlike Kylie’s ‘LoveKylie’ collection of sexy lingerie or indeed Lily Allen’s ‘Lily Loves’ floral prom-dress collection, Fearne’s selection was far more practical with such items as denim tops, blouses, trousers, accessories and what the press called a ‘gorgeous Maribou maxi dress’ that she modelled herself, both online and out in public.

Renowned as a seasoned festival-goer, it was always going to be ideal to launch her range with a digital campaign that included her own online music, fashion and festival blog, for which Internet users could see her decked out in the entire collection, hear her views on music and fashion, as well as receive regular updates on the year’s summer festivals. There were even online competitions offering such prizes as tickets to Fearne’s favourite V Festival, a video iPod a day, a tent signed by the designer herself and a complete ‘Go Organic with Cotton’wardrobe.

But as she herself was quick to explain, ‘I’m not paid to look like a supermodel – I’m paid to talk. As long as I’m doing my job and improving each week then I’d rather gauge my success on that level. I have done a couple of magazine shoots with the “sex symbol” tag, but they take these photos when you’re made up, got your hair done and you’re wearing some glamorous bikini. It’s not me, it’s just a fantasy that they’ve created and I love being part of that, but it’s not my reality. It’s one particular image created for one particular magazine on one particular day, whereas the real me is sitting on my sofa wearing tracksuit bottoms, looking like an old hag, with unbrushed hair, eating a big bowl of cereal.

‘I’m just like any other normal twenty-something: some days I wake up with a big spot on my chin, feeling a bit run-down and flabby, and other days I feel like I could take on the world. The most important thing is to walk into a room believing in yourself and in the clothes that you’re wearing because if you’re not comfortable, it always shows.’

Despite what blogger Katie Button posted on the TV Scoop website, perhaps it’s Fearne’s natural vivacity and quirky dress sense that got her noticed in the first place. After all, she prides herself on her boho style. She has a nose stud, tattoos and hair extensions, and refuses to be what Paul English wrote about her: ‘an identikit blonde babe’. ‘Oh no,’ she says, horrified, ‘it’s important for children to see that you don’t have to conform and should express yourself individually.’

For her, part of that expression lies in tattoos: ‘I love working out different ways to wear my tattoos with my outfits,’ she laughs. ‘They’re part of my style. I’m really into art, so it’s an extension of that. I love getting tattoos done. I’ve got about ten now.’ But on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross she told Ross that she had 11 tattoos over her body, the most notable being a fern leaf, covering her right hip up to her ribcage. Very rock’n’roll, some may think. But Fearne admits she’s really not that hard-core when it comes to pain: ‘One tattoo took three hours, which was horrible, but worth it in the end. I’m planning a new one now, in fact. I want something to connect the fern on my ribs and the henna plant on my back. Maybe a bit of extra foliage or something …’

By the time she left Diggit, she had spent a year on the programme and was already on her way to becoming one of the most sought after presenters of children’s TV. To all intents and purposes that is why she left: so that she could concentrate on other television commitments, which included such shows as Mouse, Pump It Up, Eureka and Petswap. It also meant that she could join the BBC, which of course was her dream, but the gossip columnists were also tempted to ask whether she landed a job with the Corporation simply because she was distantly related to BBC mogul Bill Cotton, son of the late wartime bandleader Billy Cotton. But, no, it wasn’t how it happened, she insisted. She hadn’t seen him since she was five years old and that is what she told anyone who asked; she was proud to have made it all by herself.

Before she branched out to present Eureka, the after-school children’s science programme on CBBC, Petswap was probably the most popular of the shows that she was presenting on the ‘other’ channel. This was an afternoon weekday game show on ITV, offering animal-mad contestants the chance to change places with their pets. Ideas such as the opportunity for youngsters to run around a giant hamster wheel, store food in their cheeks and climb through an enormous cat flap were all part and parcel of the concept.

Although this was clearly a show for kids, it proved popular with both young and adult viewers. As one journalist commented, ‘it was a whole lot of fun’and was superbly anchored together by Fearne, who by then was already being hailed as ‘the busiest new presenter on the small screen’.

And certainly that was true. The show was another ideal vehicle for Fearne as she helped to pitch participants against each other in a series of physical and mental challenges based around a giant pet shop, a large aquarium and the Petswap garden. In one review the programme was described as ‘Children’s TV at its most mad, but brilliant stuff’. After all, where else could viewers watch contestants experience animal antics on a giant scale, from nest-building and navigation to pest problems and feeding?

According to producer Graham Brown, ‘the trick was to have lots of fun doing all the things that pets do but to learn some handy tips and simple pet-care facts along the way. We wanted kids to realise that having pets is great fun but they do need a lot of care and attention as well.’ This concept was something close to Fearne’s own heart – after all, she did have two cats of her own. She named them Tallulah and Keloy after the magic words from Disney’s 1971 Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Interestingly enough, Keloy appeared in the 2006 PDSA calendar with Fearne and was photographed by the late royal photographer Lord Lichfield. With her love for animals, as far as she was concerned, it couldn’t get much better!

By the time Petswap aired in March 2001, she had already turned her thoughts towards a place of her own: she began shopping for a property near to her parents’ home and before she turned twenty she had found what she wanted. For her, moving out of the family home was particularly heart wrenching – but not for obvious reasons. How on earth would she cope with being separated from her parents’ vast collection of vinyl?

‘I begged them to let me to take it with me, but no luck,’ she later admitted. ‘They were afraid I’d throw wild parties and spill beer all over their most treasured records. They only started to relent when I got myself properly sorted in a nice, orderly flat and fixed myself up with a state-of-the-art hi-fi. Then I was allowed to borrow their collection in small instalments, solemnly promising to take care of it. Over the years I managed to borrow quite a large chunk and I’ve got hundreds of my own records.’ Eventually, she continues, ‘I also managed to persuade my mum to hand over her entire collection of original Motown singles – which I think calls for a special vinyl party at my place!’

She moved into her new flat just before she was offered her next presenting gig, this time at the BBC for Eureka. Although she was thrilled about her latest challenge, she was also slightly nervous about taking it on. One of the reasons was simple: at school her least favourite subjects were science and technology, and so she thought her involvement in the show might be less successful than anything she had previously done – she was, after all, more of an arts girl. She had achieved an A grade for A level art and so the kind of shows she had been doing up to that time more or less suited her qualifications.

But as soon as she started work on the programme, she loved it: ‘It showed just how exciting science is and how much fun it can be.’ The part of the show that she particularly enjoyed was when she was able to demonstrate magical science experiments that viewers could also carry out at home: ‘You won’t believe some of the cool things which we did with vinegar on the show. We made a bone bendy by putting it in vinegar, which is pretty mad. Who would think that you could make a bone bendy? We even showed how to make an egg bounce using vinegar!’

She was also convinced that her favourite ‘High Tech Eureka’ featured on the programme was going to become a real craze. ‘We show amazing new sweets for the first time on British TV, which have holograms stamped onto the surface. They look unbelievable,’ she enthused at the time. ‘I reckon they’ll be a huge hit. We also made a hologram in the studio using a laser pointer, which was absolutely incredible. It looked so beautiful.’

This time around, she shared presenting duties with Kate Heavenor, who had landed her first presenting job on another CBBC show, Fully Booked. Since then, she had presented Hyperlinks and FBi, and had fronted The Crew Room on BBC Choice as well as appearing on Children In Need, a programme that Fearne would later end up being involved with herself.

Like Fearne, Kate had no formal science training to be a presenter for a science and technology programme for kids but she did have a scientific father of sorts, who became an accomplished inventor. A dentist by trade, he identified a need for a toothbrush that would encourage people to hold the brush at a 45-degree angle and developed a brand of handle that is successful in helping to hold awkward or heavy objects easily. It’s now used on a diverse range of products, from saucepans to baby buggies.

Looking back, Kate has particularly fond memories of recording the ‘Wild Eureka’ part of the show that looked at the part science plays in the animal kingdom. In one item she filmed about pelicans, the pelican in the studio somewhat unexpectedly decided to use Kate’s head as a convenient perch. She even got a kiss from a sea lion: ‘I knew that if I just gave the sea lion a peck on the cheek it would turn away really quickly and we wouldn’t get the shot we needed. So I really went for it and gave the sea lion a smacker on the lips! Fearne couldn’t believe what I’d done and she still makes fun of me for it.’

In another programme, Kate and Fearne explained how a tornado works, thanks to a large demonstration machine set up in the studio. Kate found herself spinning round and round on a large disc to demonstrate how things at the centre of a tornado move much faster than they do nearer to the outside: ‘We recorded the item straight after lunch and we had to do it quite a few times. At one point I felt very queasy because of all the spinning. I’m sure I looked quite ill on the finished programme.’

When they weren’t working together, Kate and Fearne would spend their time off-camera hanging out with each other, doing what most girlfriends do. Then a regular visitor to Fearne’s new flat, Kate was always popping round for what she called a natter: ‘I’ve even got my own special box of tea there so I don’t drink all of Fearne’s. I haven’t got a toothbrush there yet, but let’s just say that our clothes have become rather interchangeable.’