Ex-TV star on how that live interview leaves her fuming

to you doesn’t mean you are incontinent.” Carol, who splits her time between her homes in Glasgow’s southside and Portugal, started up her underwear business after hitting 50 and deciding to bow out of television gracefully.

Her Pretty Clever Pants company, who specialise in discreet waterproof knickers, have just signed a global deal with High Street TV.

The former model, who was once earning £10,000 a show as presenter of the National Lottery draw, says she has no regrets about bowing out of an industry which is both ageist and sexist.

She said: “Yes, it was scary to walk away from TV at 50 but it was time to go and I’m glad I did. I wanted to leave on a high and on my own terms. I didn’t want to have to wait for the day when I was begging some 23-year-old producer for a job.

“I have no problem with younger people coming into the business as I had my turn and now it is someone else’s. I had the best of runs and was lucky to do more than most others can only dream of.

“I do think it is a real shame that there aren’t more older women on TV but it seems older men are deemed experienced and wise whereas female presenters and newsreaders have a shelf life. It doesn’t seem fair but that’s the way it is.”

BBC’s Changing Rooms got audiences of 11million and, in more than 100 episodes from 1996 to 2004, the former Wheel of Fortune host was at the heart of the show.

She also presented three lottery shows – the National Lottery, the People’s Postcode Lottery and the Scottish Children’s Lottery – but never bought a ticket herself.

She said: “Changing Rooms was the first TV reality series and none of us realised at the time quite how big it was going to be. I still have a brown leather jacket I rescued from being turned into a cushion on the show and I wore it to the 20-year reunion.”

But she can’t hide her disgust at some of today’s biggest TV stars discussing their pay packets. And although she won’t name names, a certain Match of the Day host may wish to look away now.

She said: “I was annoyed but not par ticularly shocked when al l the

The first thing he did was to tell the world that I was incontinent. I’m still fizzing