AGED 32

IT’S 1978 and I’m 32, and the mother of a little girl, now the TV presenter Claudia Winkleman. I’d returned to work when she was six weeks old. I remember I felt very unfit, unsexy and truly unattractive. Other women bloom in pregnancy — not me. I certainly didn’t ‘glow’ with motherhood either.

But I was now truly entrenched in a man’s world. Testosterone-filled newsrooms made me feel I had to get back into shape and look attractive.

While I knew it was my ideas and energy that would keep me in my job, as a rare woman, working alongside men, I knew I could not afford to look unattractive or unkempt. I couldn’t be invisible. They wore their uniform. I had to don mine.

There was only one thing for it. The bottle. The blonde bottle. But as you can see, this was when subtle highlights and smooth shiny hair were much harder to achieve than now.

But I did have my fantastic, close-fitting Biba dress and knee-length purple boots. The uniform worked (I’m pictured here about to interview the author Harold Robbins). I look fashionable and confident and am discovering the power of clothes.