IN HER OWN WORDS: Michaela Strachan

As the latest series of Autumnwatch continues (8pm, BBC2), we take a look at what presenter Michaela Strachan has had to say about her life and career… On one of the unassuming animal stars of last year’s Springwatch, a stickleback fish:

‘We called him Spineless Si because he was meant to have three spines, and this poor chap only had two. He was an underdog whose nest was squashed first by a duck, and then by an otter. And he wasn’t attracting the ladies – unlike his neighbour, Frisky Phil, who was a big hit with the females.’

On going cosmetics-free on camera when orang-utans stole her make-up bag while filming Orang-utan Diary:

‘I sat for ages at the bottom of the tree – hoping to retrieve whatever the orang-utans dropped – while they smeared on my lipstick, ate eye shadows and chewed all the brushes, and all I got was a powder compact and an eye shadow! The all-male crew were totally unsympathetic, so I just had to get on with it and rely on having a tan.’

On the song Scouting For Girls wrote about the former children’s TV presenter, with the line ‘Michaela Strachan, you broke my heart when I was 12’:

‘The band were more worried about it than I was. All I could think was, did I really mean this much to people?’

On life in South Africa, and how she keeps fit when she is back in London:

‘Life’s very outdoorsy in South Africa, and it’s easy to pop out for a run. It’s not always so easy here. When I come back to England, everything feels very frantic.’