Читать книгу Fearne Cotton - The Biography - Nigel Goodall - Страница 9

‘Growing up, there were certain things that for me encapsulated the romance of pop music. If you loved it, you’d read about your favourite bands in Smash Hits or NME, save up your money to buy their records and wait all week to see them on TOTP.’

Fearne Marie Cotton was fifteen years old. She had just won an audition to be a presenter for the Disney Channel in a national search for talent. Not that she had any intention of becoming a presenter; she had always had her mind set on being an actress. And that, to all intents and purposes, is the role she thought she was auditioning for. It had been her dream for the last ten years, ever since she started taking drama and ballet lessons, in and out of school. Never in a million years had she thought about presenting children’s shows on television.

If the secret of success is an unhappy childhood, then Fearne should never have been destined for greatness in the world of television because her childhood was everything but unhappy. There are no horror stories of abuse or lost parentage, or being moved from home to home, refuge to refuge, traumas that spiralled out of control, or being raised by druggie parents. No indeed, her story is quite the opposite. She was born on 3 September 1981 in Northwood, north-west London, but grew up in the nearby suburb of Eastcote, in Abbotsbury Gardens. From the very beginning it was quite clear that she was fortunate enough to have a pretty stable upbringing, unlike so many of Britain’s most famous celebrities.

And perhaps what is more remarkable is that today Fearne is one of the most popular faces on television, both in the UK and in America, an ex-children’s presenter, a rock chick with royal approval and a star. Much of her success she puts down to her mother, Lynn. ‘She is exceptional,’ says Fearne. ‘She knew I didn’t love school and wanted to do something different with my life and she didn’t try and stop me. She just advised me to “do what makes you happy”. If I hadn’t had her support from the start, I might never have given acting and presenting a go. She’s always been open-minded and supportive even in a distant way. She lets me get on with it but is interested in what I do. She’s a strong woman who doesn’t take any shit from anyone and definitely wears the trousers in the marriage. She’s very spontaneous and impulsive.

‘She’d say, “Right, we’re moving house!” and we did,’ Fearne recalls. ‘And that’s how I like to live, too. Both of her parents have passed away and I don’t know how she coped, but she did. She was the one who had to break the news both times to the rest of the family, which must have been heartbreaking for her. But she helped us all to be strong. That was a massive inspiration. My mum’s attitude to life is you’ve got to get on with it. You can’t get bullied and battered in this industry and it’s taught me to be strong. If you get knocked down, you get back up and carry on.

‘I can’t even think how I’d manage if I lost her. I just take it for granted that I can talk to her all the time – I tell her almost everything. But I know she’s a massive worrier, so I hold some things back.’ Her grandmother, Lynn’s mother, passed away back in 2003 and Fearne still talks about her fondly: ‘She was brilliant, intelligent and fun. She’d sit and chat for hours and was awful for practical jokes. She had lung cancer, endured chemotherapy and eventually died, aged sixty-eight. But the way she carried herself through was unbelievable.

‘We were young kids and it was hard for her to see us being affected by it. She didn’t show she was in pain and tried to make it easy for us. All her hair fell out, but she would just joke about it, saying, “I look like David Beckham, do you like it?” This was when he’d just shaved off all his hair for the first time. And she refused to wear a wig, even when we were around. She had one made but never wore it. Instead, she wore cool turbans.

‘I learnt a lot about having spirit, because she never gave up or said, “It’s over” – she joked until the very last day. It was her way of dealing with her illness and we got to spend time with her in a normal way. She always liked watching me on TV and I just wanted to make her proud.’

Another person she speaks of with great fondness is her Nan Ruby: ‘My cousin and I take her out for a coffee once a month. When she turned eighty-five, she was still so glamorous, very “brooch matches the jacket and earrings”, and looked wicked. She’s blunt, too, and says the funniest things. She inspires me to speak my mind and make an effort with my appearance. When I was eighteen I dyed my hair pink and she said, “What have you done?” I was like, “Yours is bloody purple!” – she overlooked her own lilac rinse! She’s also hugely up on her cultural references and watches me on TV – although she doesn’t treat me any differently from her other grandchildren. She’s not like some older people who live in the past. I really admire her for having a strong sense of self. She knows what she likes and has never given that up. She does what makes her feel good and thinks clothes are an important way to express yourself.’

But it is her mother who has been the biggest inspiration of all. The one thing Fearne adores most about her is how she’s so calm about what she calls ‘these crazy stories about me in the press’.

Behind the scenes during a photo shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine, the day after she attended the launch of Lily Allen’s ‘Lily Loves’ range for high street chain New Look, she decided to spill the beans about some of those ‘crazy stories’. One of them told how she apparently liked to boast about how good she was in bed: from how she wore ‘naughty lingerie and high heels in the bedroom’, loved sex up to four times a night, has had ten tattoos, not to mention a Brazilian wax, to how she uses her bendy figure to drive fellas wild (‘I can do the splits, which is a great skill to have. I used to be a dancer so I’m very, er, flexible. I’m naturally bendy. If blokes want to explore that quality, then that’s up to them.’) The truth, however, is a lot less sensational: ‘I did say I was confident in bed in an interview that got exaggerated. I’m not saying I’m good, I’m not saying I’m bad – I’m not saying anything!’

She had a similar experience when the gossip columns made out that she had dated more than her fair share of rocker boys and linked her to men she had never even met. ‘The craziest ones were me dating Prince William and seeing the drummer [Tre Cool] of Green Day, who I think has a wife and kids. The papers just make it up.’

But yes, she conceded, ‘I’ve dated some people in the public eye and some who aren’t. It doesn’t matter to me; I’m not fussy. I’ve got more chance of meeting someone within the business though as all I seem to do is work. If I could go on a date with any rock star, I’d go for Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers – he’s hot!’ With Kiedis almost twice her age, one cannot help but wonder if Fearne perhaps prefers the older man. ‘God yeah,’ she sighed. ‘I obviously like the more mature man. Most guys my age act like they’re about twelve!’

By all accounts, the launch for Allen’s ‘Lily Loves’ range in May 2007, two months before Fearne fronted her own range, was a bit thin on the ground when it came to Lily’s celebrity friends. Most, it seemed, were absent. In fact, according to the press, it was only Fearne who was instantly recognisable when she turned out to support Allen’s attempt to follow her own individual heart and tap into a different end of the fashion market, which might perhaps not have been the kind of range that some of the other big-name celebrities would want to endorse. All the same, she still managed to raise a smile as she posed with her actor–presenter father Keith Allen and modelled the floral prom-dress-style range, along with jewellery and footwear designed by the singer, which, like Fearne’s own organic cotton range, was available in most high street stores across Britain.

Allen first shot to fame with her witty hit song ‘Smile’ that was released to iTunes UK on 26 June 2006 ahead of the physical CD release on 3 July. It spend most of its first week at Number One on the iTunes chart before entering at Number Thirteen in the official UK Top 40. In time Lily became best known for her ‘chavvy chic’ style, which paired new and vintage long prom-style dresses and ball gowns with trainers and chunky gold jewellery. Although many considered she was simply acting like so many others, now following in the iconic footsteps of Kate Moss and Madonna by unveiling her own high street fashion, Allen insisted there was no rivalry.

‘I don’t see any point in comparing these things. I did not go into music to compare myself to other artists … It’s a bit boring, really. We are just women and trying to get on with our lives. They are both totally different women and have totally different fan bases to me. Kate Moss is a model, for God’s sake, and of course they are going to sell more than I do – they are massive international names.’ Despite the critical observations, she didn’t see it as a competitive move on her part to challenge others such as Kate Moss, Katie Price (aka Jordan), Madonna and Kylie’s more seductive and temptress range of lingerie.

If anything, Allen’s ‘Lily Loves’ collection featured dresses that were completely different from those in the collections of the other stars. For a start, they were available in sizes ranging from 6 to 18, with high-heeled shoes, patterned trainers and floral jewellery. Allen said she had looked to the 300 dresses in her own wardrobe for inspiration and wanted something more than just the usual pretty, flowery style. She described the results as a summer collection of ‘super-girly’ clothes for women of all sizes. And she was probably right.

‘You know how I feel about fashion: it’s for everyone, not just a load of super-skinny models,’ she says. The launch at 312 stores followed the shopping frenzy sparked by the Kate Moss collection that had its debut at rival fashion chain Topshop. When Moss’s collection was launched, a week earlier, more than a thousand shoppers queued from noon (eight hours before the items were due to go on sale) outside Topshop’s flagship Oxford Street store to get first pick of the supermodel’s designs. Moss herself appeared in the window of the store wearing a long, red-neck flamingo dress from the collection.

Prices for Allen’s clothes and accessories ranged from £5 for a flower ring to £55 for a ‘Foxtrot Ruffle’ dress. After the in-store launch, Lily changed into her favourite outfit from the collection – ‘the Graffiti’ dress – as she and her guests made their way to the Groucho Club in London to continue celebrations. The tabloid press were quick to notice, however, that Allen’s then boyfriend, DJ Seb Chew, and her best friend, TV presenter and actress Miquita Oliver, were not present at either the launch or the after-party.

From what was noted at the party, it seemed Allen shared the same close rapport as Fearne did with her own dad. Mick, who she calls ‘Mr Brightside’, was not quite so impulsive a character as her mother – ‘He’s never raised his voice, shouted or got angry with me. He’s just the calmest, nicest man on earth.’ While she was growing up, he was a graphic designer, but he also worked as a signwriter for large music events such as Live Aid, and according to Fearne, he yielded to no one in his love for classic rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Doors – unlike her mother, Lynn, who had a penchant for Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound productions, Stax and Motown. Indeed, if Fearne’s mother inspired her to be spontaneous and impulsive, then it was her father who balanced his daughter’s impetuous diet with music and art. In those days, years before digital downloads liberated listeners from the tyranny of instant and forgettable hits, Fearne was brought up on vinyl. It was as if this was her education rather than anything she was later to learn in school.

‘I was about four when I first started to get into records. My dad would put on Led Zeppelin IV and play “Stairway To Heaven” over and over. I was fascinated by this gorgeous sound coming off a piece of plastic.’ In 2007, she met Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page: ‘I met him at a gallery opening and I was a blithering wreck, saying, “I love you, I’ve got every album you’ve ever made!” I knew I had to stop or he’d think I was a loon. We ended up having a good chat, though.’

As Rolling Stone magazine noted, it wasn’t just Led Zeppelin’s thunderous volume, sledgehammer beat and edge-of-mayhem arrangements that made them the most influential and successful heavy-metal pioneer band, it was their finesse. Like the band’s ancestors, The Yardbirds, they used a guitar style that drew heavily on the Blues with their early repertoire taking remakes of songs by Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King and Willie Dixon, who later, incidentally, won a sizeable settlement from the band in a suit in which he alleged copyright infringement. But Jimmy Page blessed the group with a unique understanding of the guitar, and the recording studio, as electronic instruments, and of rock, as sculptural sound. Like Jimi Hendrix, Page had a reason for every bit of distortion, feedback, reverberation and out-and-out noise that he incorporated. Few of their many imitators can make the same claim and this may have been one of the reasons why Fearne loved them as much as her father did.

All the same, it wasn’t until she was about seven or eight years old that her parents trusted her enough with their record player: ‘After that, there was no stopping me! Whole weekends would be spent going through their collection, discovering all kinds of amazing stuff. When I was nine and getting pocket money I could afford my own records.

‘I remember heading down the shops with 50p in my pocket, wondering which record would take my fancy. I happened to find a copy of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” in a second-hand shop. It was scratched to bits but I loved it beyond words. Growing up, there were certain things that for me encapsulated the romance of pop music. If you loved it, you’d read about your favourite bands in Smash Hits or NME, save up your money to buy their records and wait all week to see them on TOTP.’

And of course the other fascination was the vinyl itself, she continues: ‘Nothing beats the smell of fresh vinyl in the morning. It’s still unbeatable as a musical format. CDs are functional but essentially unlovable and there’s no magic involved in downloading a song. Playing vinyl is a beautiful ritual. What can compare to the feeling of carefully removing a treasured record from its sleeve, placing it on the deck and hearing that reassuring crackle as the needle hits the groove?

‘People say “Yes, but records get scratched.” I love the scratches. Some of my favourite records have scratches and those scratches become part of the listening experience. I’m not completely opposed to the iPod – I’ve got one and it’s handy for the car. If I could play vinyl when I’m driving, I would. But flipping the records over would be a bit difficult when I’m tearing down the M1!’

When the Mail on Sunday’s Live magazine caught up with Fearne for an August 2007 feature, she had just got back from camping with friends in Cornwall. On the second day, she confessed, ‘I was craving for my fix of vinyl. So we went to a car-boot sale and picked up a load of bargains: original Elvis, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton albums for 50p. Then I managed to find a portable, battery-powered record player going cheap in a second-hand store. We were all set up for the week – endless barbecues and music being played as it should be played. Idyllic!’

Equally blissful were the family holidays to Lulworth Cove in Dorset with her parents and her younger brother Jamie, who was born two years after her: ‘We went so regularly that it became our second home and I made loads of friends there, who have stuck by me through the years despite my glitzy career. When I was fifteen, I got my first showbiz job; I found that I needed my Lulworth breaks more than ever. I was a big girl by then and went by myself for summer holidays and at Christmas and Easter.’

To this day, Lulworth Cove is still her favourite beach: ‘There’s a little ledge that sticks out from one of the cliff faces and hangs over the bay. My friends and I discovered it one cold Easter morning as we were walking towards the beach, so we perched ourselves down and started chatting. I think it used to be part of a wartime bunker and it became my special secret place. If I’m down there with a friend, we’ll go and sit on the ledge and have a long talk. It’s a great place to put other thoughts aside and just catch up.

‘I haven’t had enough time to visit the cove as much as I’d like to recently because I’ve been so busy filming and getting by on five or six hours sleep a night. But I still aim to visit at least once a year and whenever I do manage to tear myself away and drive down to Dorset in my Mini Cooper, it feels like I’m going home.

‘For my 21st birthday I took eight friends to the cove. My mobile is unable to pick up a signal there, which is brilliant because it means there’s nothing to do but chat and look at the fantastic view over the Channel. In the summer, the sea is really clear and the cove is as peaceful as it always was. Although I’m a coffee fiend – I got the habit after spending so much time in America [filming and travelling across the country during a road trip of a lifetime] – I love going to the teashops just inland from Lulworth, near Corfe Castle. They sell scones and have old-fashioned jars of sweets; it’s like going back in time. In fact, everything about Lulworth reminds me of revisiting my childhood.’

Unlike some of the journalists to whom she has related anecdotes about her early life, Fearne balks at the stories that she was some sort of flower child, as some writers have tried to make her out to be. It was only after she became famous that she was tagged as having a hippie childhood, as if she had been raised on dandelion tea in a yurt pitched at Stonehenge. But that just isn’t true, she says: ‘I was born in a bungalow, we upgraded to a semi and it was just a normal suburban life. We went on camping holidays in our rubbish car and it was all very bog standard.’

True, her parents may have been slightly unconventional and the world in which they circulated may have not been typically ordinary, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are hippies. Nor does it make Fearne one, even though her mother has been variously described as a ‘professional dog-walker’ and a ‘Tarot-reading mystic’, who predicted Fearne would have three children before she turned thirty, and her father taught her to paint and encouraged her to love artists such as Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne and Jenny Saville, famous for her portraits of curvaceous women. Lynn and Mick Cotton are probably only considered unconventional because they are passionate about what they do.

As Fearne explains, ‘People always say that I make my mum out to be some kind of nutter but she’s really just a very normal and interesting character. She’s always meditating and practising alternative remedies and she got me into reiki [the Japanese healing technique], and she’s very interested in spiritual things and guardian angels. She got me into meditating. She always told me to dream outside the box and said I could do anything if I could visualise it.’

Not only that, she continues, but, ‘my mum had great style as a young woman and I take a lot of inspiration from photos of her during the seventies. As a kid, I’d always go into my mum’s cupboard, dress up in this big purple silk robe and walk around the house pretending that I was a queen – so not much has changed!’

Fearne’s younger brother Jamie, born two years after she arrived in the world, is quite the opposite to what one might expect. He is, she explains, ‘like my dad – very shy, very chilled, doesn’t say boo to a goose and doesn’t give a crap what I do!’ Rather than follow his sister into showbiz, Jamie chose to study for a degree in marketing. He’s not at all like his sister, who from an early age loved to dress up, perform and be the centre of attention, but why should he be?

Even if Fearne had been regarded as a hippie kid on the block, there is no evidence to suggest she was an outcast or ostracised because of it. And let’s face it, if you were a hippie in the early- to mid-1990s this would be a definite no-no at school. Imagine it: had she been a hippie, she would have almost certainly been considered wild, weird and anti-social at the time, and by all accounts, she was none of those things. Certainly she was never bullied or battered, either as a youngster or in her adult life, and probably the worst thing that ever happened to her at school was being called ‘Fearne-tree’ or ‘Fearne-iture’ – the nicknames the other pupils bestowed on her.

Neither did she go through the same kind of nightmare as, say, actress Winona Ryder did, who was far more of a ‘hippie kid on the block’ than wannabe hippie Fearne ever was. It happened when a group of fellow students decided to single Winona out on her third day in the seventh grade. Seen as an effeminate boy, the incident occurred in the hallway of her new school in between classes, when some of her fellow students decided to pounce. ‘A group of guys hit me in the stomach and banged my head into a locker, so I got stitches,’ Winona recalls. ‘They were calling me faggot and I was like,“but wait – I am a girl!” But they didn’t believe me.’

Fearne never went through such an ordeal. So, isn’t it interesting to ponder that the only struggle she appears to have had to get where she is now, despite the fact that her grandfather’s cousin is Sir Billy Cotton, former controller of BBC Light Entertainment – who might have made things very easy for her, but didn’t – was to give up some of the things she felt she didn’t need? One of those, she admits, was going without long student lie-ins, which she describes as ‘a teeny-weeny sacrifice’.

Of course, even if she had wanted to do so, there was no real opportunity to hook up with the graduate crowd of the 1980s who were experiencing the throwback of writer and psychologist Timothy Leary’s ‘tune in, turn on and drop out’ era. It was, after all, a decade that kicked off the 1960s’ counterculture rebellion long before it was fashionable to be a societal renegade, a time when free thinking, free love and free drugs were the buzzwords of a generation.

Leary himself, of course, was a key figure of that period. Kicked out of West Point Military Academy and dismissed from Harvard as well, his adventures with hallucinogenic drugs earned him notoriety and jail time but he never repented. Even in his mid-seventies, several years before his death, he believed, ‘Psychoactive brain-activating drugs are the most powerful tools humanity has for operating your mind, your brain, developing new language, building upon communications, new cultures and subcultures.’

Like a messiah attracting followers of his teachings, Leary (Winona Ryder’s godfather, incidentally) was a true visionary. Bound up in those visions was the dream of change, enfranchisement and a new dawn of freedom that flavoured the 1960s even as America became more and more deeply mired in the Vietnam War.

‘The long history of psychedelic drugs,’ Leary taught, ‘has always been associated with shamanism, mysticism, art, poetry, free sexuality, acceptance of the body, an ecological sense of the oneness of all things. This runs through Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Greek humanism … There was an enormous drug influence on the French Revolution, on Wordsworth, Coleridge, Emerson, Thoreau … It’s a tradition.’

It was, of course, almost ironic that early into the decade that followed, marijuana became the dope of childhood; older kids made their way through school on amphetamines, Quaaludes and liquor. But this certainly wasn’t the kind of surroundings that Fearne endured as her own ambitions began to take shape.

Instead she became driven, dedicated and disciplined in all that she did and what she wanted to achieve under her own steam. Rather than worry about missing relaxations such as student lie-ins and leisure pursuits, she decided to balance her presenting jobs by studying for an A level in art at college in north-west London, where she grew up and had her first job working for her grandfather.

‘He owned a flower shop and put me in charge of cleaning flower pots, a role I hated because the pots stank of rotten eggs. I worked in the shop on Saturdays and got paid about £20, which I usually spent on CDs. Granddad was quite strict and told me off quite a lot, mostly for sweeping up plants and soil in the wrong direction, which made the shop look a mess. But I could get away with being a bit cheeky and he was a joker, always having a laugh with the customers and mucking around,’ she recalls.

Not so good was ‘the really embarrassing photo of me, my brother Jamie and my cousin Biba when we were about six, four and two. It showed us all naked in the garden and it was placed above the shop counter. We used to beg him to take it down as all our friends walked past the shop on the way to school. But he thought it was hilarious and would point it out to my mates.

‘The good things about working in the shop included hanging out with my aunt Karen and getting a lift home by car. I also got free flowers to give to my mum and learnt how to do arty stuff like arrange a lovely bunch of flowers. But I only lasted three weeks at the shop; I left after I saw an ad in the paper about a new weekend drama school – I felt it would be a better way to fill my weekends. My granddad was very understanding. I think he was glad to get a new Saturday girl who was a bit more enthusiastic!’

Compared to working in her grandfather’s flower shop, school for Fearne was a similarly uninspiring experience and she grew to dislike most things about Haydon School in Northwood Hills in Eastcote village, not far from where she lived. She just didn’t like it. Not that there was anything necessarily wrong with the school, but perhaps from her point of view it was simply an inconvenience compared to what she really wanted to do. And perhaps she was right when you consider that the school is now a language college, and probably nothing like it was when she attended.

All the same, like most of us at one time or another she still had her favourite teacher. His name was Mr Iggulden and he taught English, Fearne remembers: ‘It’s funny because English wasn’t one of my favourite subjects to start with; I was really terrible at it. I was about the level of a D when I started, but Mr Iggulden got me to an A in my GCSE. I remember one specific lesson where we all went in and he brought up something quite controversial: it was something about sexism and women. He knew there were some mouthy girls in the class – especially me – and we all started to have an argument. The discussion lasted for almost the full hour and someone said, “Sir, aren’t we going to do any work?” And he said, “That was your oral exam.” It was a really good way to go about it – it got everyone involved.

‘On top of that,’ she continues, ‘he was young, cool and funky. We argued a bit because I was a bit cocky but we were still friends. I always wanted to impress him, even if I did mess about a bit. I was amazed when I got my A. I was a terrible speller, but Mr Iggulden knew I was really into poetry and played to my strengths. Now I’m an avid reader – I usually have about three books on the go.

‘He’s an author now. He wrote a book called The Gates of Rome about Julius Caesar. I saw him again recently and he said, “Well done” to me for proving him wrong because he always told me I’d need my school work as a back-up in case my career didn’t work out. I did drama outside school from the age of about twelve, every night and every weekend. I loved it; it was an escape from routines, which I hate. I did loads of auditions. I was working during my GCSEs and I did more and more after that. I did one A level in art. I went to the university of life and TV presenting.’

Interestingly enough, Iggulden is only ten years older than Fearne, and according to his website, he vaguely remembers half pennies and sixpences: ‘I have written for as long as I can remember: poetry, short stories and novels. It’s what I always wanted to do and read English at London University with writing in mind. I taught English for seven years and was Head of English at St Gregory’s RC High School in London by the end of that period. I have enormous respect for those who still labour at the chalk-face. In truth, I can’t find it in me to miss the grind of paperwork and initiatives. I do miss the camaraderie of the smokers’ room, as well as the lessons where their faces lit up as they understood what I was wittering on about.

‘My mother is Irish and from an early age she told me history as an exciting series of stories – with dates. My great-grandfather was a Seannachie, so I suppose storytelling is in the genes somewhere. My father flew in Bomber Command in WWII, then taught maths and science. Perhaps crucially, he also loved poetry and cracking good tales. Though it seems a dated idea now, I began teaching when boys were told only girls were good at English, despite the great names that must spring to mind after that statement. My father loved working with wood and equations but he also recited Vitai Lampada with a gleam in his eye and that matters, frankly.

‘I’ve always loved historical fiction as a genre and cut my teeth on Hornblower and Tai-Pan, Flashman, Sharpe and Jack Aubrey. I still remember the sheer joy of reading my first Patrick O’Brian book and discovering there were nineteen more in the series. I love just about anything by David Gemmell, or Peter F. Hamilton or Wilbur Smith. I suppose the one thing that links all those is the love of a good tale.’

But not all her teachers were like Iggulden. There was one, Fearne remembers, who was very discouraging towards her and did everything he could to put her off going into the entertainment industry. She bumped into him six years after she had left school and he couldn’t believe she was doing so well. ‘He had to eat his words,’ she recalls. ‘I remember him saying at school that success in showbusiness was one chance in a million and he told me not to have high hopes about it. But I was, like, “I don’t care what you say because if I have that attitude, I’ll never succeed. I’ve got to think that I’m going to do it!” I had to believe in myself, so his attitude spurred me on even more. I thought, “I’m going to prove you wrong, you so-and-so.” And I’m glad I did.’

But there were, of course, embarrassing moments, she remembers, and one of those was when she and her friend Lucy went to dance school and made up routines of their own instead of doing PE as they were supposed to. They created a unique choreography for Janet Jackson’s ‘Together Again’ and performed it wearing black tights with the crotch cut out as a top, plus lots of eyeliner. ‘We thought it was brilliant,’ she laughs at the memory today, admitting that in reality, ‘I’m sure it was trashy as hell!’

She was passionate about going into showbusiness from a very early age; by the time she reached her teens she had attended lots of auditions and spent her evenings and weekends studying at drama school, learning tap, jazz and breakdancing, and even doing some modelling for girls’ magazines like Sugar (which she habitually mentions to passing journalists with only the minimum of reference).

Another of Fearne’s great passions while growing up was to immerse herself in books. Even though most children today would probably pick a work such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or Children of the New Forest or Harry Potter as their favourite read, the most influential book of Fearne’s childhood, she says, was The Twits by Roald Dahl: ‘My mum used to read it to me. All the characters came to life but I still can’t eat Heinz spaghetti for fear I’m actually eating worms!’

Equally influential, albeit for different reasons, was her self-made resolution to succeed. Perhaps the teacher who was so discouraging towards her didn’t realise that even as a child she was pretty determined and the philosophy she had been taught by her family was that anyone can do anything if they want it badly enough and are prepared to work hard enough for it. ‘But you have to think about how to get there,’ she comments. ‘Just saying, “I want to be famous” isn’t enough. It’s got to involve thinking about what school subjects might help, how you could get a behind-the-scenes job, anything … And then, you’ve got to work really hard.’ And that is exactly what she did. Not that she knew at first what presenting was all about. She thought ‘it was just people larking about on TV – which is what I do. But as soon as I tried my hand at it, I was hooked and I wanted to pursue it seriously.’

From then on, she remembers, ‘I knew what I wanted to do and I was lucky enough to go from job to job. My dream was always to work at the BBC.’ With her individual look, a sort of girl gone mad in a hippie dressing-up box, she certainly wasn’t the usual choice for the rather conservative Corporation, but little did she know that her dream was to ring truer than even she could have imagined.