Everyone was doing Drdurgugss where I lived. I lost a friend to heroin before he was 18. My wemreum put a picture of Leah Betts on fridge to warn me off Es...

him again. He came back for the occasional wedding or family occasion. When he tried to come back in her life in a more meaningful way when she was aged 13 it was too late to reconcile.” Her dad died when Stacey, now 31, was in her early 20s. Diane, who moved on with new husband Norman, said: “She was sad. It was a lost opportunity.”

Stacey admits she went through a phase of shoplifting with pals in Luton. And then there was a troubling spell with a controlling boyfriend which she spoke about while publicising her BBC3 domestic violence documentaries.

Asked by the Radio Times if she had personal experience, she replied: “I haven’t been physically attacked by a guy.

“But one particular lad…he wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. I had no understanding of what a healthy relationship looks and feels like.

“I mean, I was 14 when I was with him, and I left him when I was 17.”

It was during this relationship Stacey left school at 15 without qualifications.

Her first job was waitressing for €3.30 an hour.

But, while working, aged 20, at Luton Airport in the perfume and make-up section of duty free, she was chosen for the BBC3 series Blood, Sweat and T-shirts, about sweat shop labour in the fashion trade.

After campaigning against child labour and appearing on Newsnight, she was approached by BBC3, who commissioned her first documen-

ON GROWING UP IN LUTON

tary. Stacey has gone back to the subject of drugs and, in April 2015, she looked at drug use around the world, visiting Mexico to look at meth production and South Africa, where she discovered a new stronger strain of cannabis.

In 2016, Stacey was held by police as she investigated child sexual exploitation in Japan.

Closer to home, in 2017, she made Kids Selling Drugs Online and found dealers in the UK earning up to €330 a day, still in their school uniforms.

I’d drink... and smoke loads of fags, but I never, ever done gear STACEY DOOLEY

In her 2018 Stacey Dooley Investigates series, she visited Russia, Florida, Iraq, and Hungary to probe wars, domestic violence and fashion industry pollution.

In one heart-stopping episode, she confronted an ISIS solider in Iraq, which won her a One World Media Award.

But now all her focus is on Strictly. “My documentaries are harrowing, very straight and serious. That’s the work I love. But when Strictly came up I thought ‘why not’,” she says.

And there are two people very happy that she has put all the dangers behind her, for now.

“My boyfriend is delighted and my motivation is him,” she says. “Mum is beside herself too.”