The Irish Mail on Sunday

My life through a lens

Celebritie­s share the stories behind their favourite photograph­s. This week it’s presenter and writer Konnie Huq, 46

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1984

My parents put everything into my and my sisters’ education – here I am with Rupa in a school photo. I did physics, chemistry and maths at A Level and I was going to do engineerin­g but I got my first job, on satellite television show TVFM, while in sixth form. I was 16 but pretended I’d left school as I never thought I’d get the job. I interviewe­d pop bands such as Take That and East 17 after school, then I kept working in TV while studying economics at Cambridge.

2008

I ran a leg of the Beijing Olympics torch relay when it came to London and there was a real carnival atmosphere, but then suddenly I was surrounded by these guys in blue tracksuits. I think they were Chinese secret police; one of them was holding my arm, pushing it up higher, almost manhandlin­g me. It was really weird – even our police seemed scared of them. Then a pro-Tibet human rights protester tried to wrestle the torch off me, but I managed to hold on.

1998

This was taken at the 40th anniversar­y of Blue Peter, when current and ex-presenters [Konnie was a host from 1997 to 2008] gathered in London. You could be interviewi­ng the prime minister one day and be on top of a wind turbine the next. The travel was the best thing about the show though – you don’t just go to a place, you go into people’s homes and make local delicacies. I’ve also fed sharks in the sea wearing a chainmail wetsuit and flown with a propeller strapped to my back. It was terrifying!

2010

The X Factor was the highest-rating series ever when I presented spin-off show The Xtra Factor. This is me interviewi­ng One Direction – I knew Zayn, Niall, Liam, Louis and Harry from the audition stage and they finished third. They were 16 and just sweet little boys; they’d text me funny messages and hang out in my dressing room. I knew their families and they all had good parents, which is so important. We tried to stay in touch but I’m terrible at keeping up with people, and they had bigger fish to fry.

1978

Here I am sitting in my dad’s lap with my older sisters, Nutun and Rupa. My parents were from Pabna, a rural village in Bangladesh and came over in the 1960s. My dad Muhammad was an actuary and got a job in London at an insurance company when they were recruiting from abroad. Later, he opened a tandoori restaurant in Soho, calling it after my mum Rowshan.

1981

My parents moved from Barons Court to Ealing to have kids. They wanted the suburban house with the garden (where I’m pictured on my tricycle, aged six). It was a happy childhood, we knew all the kids on the street and would roam on our bikes. In the summer holidays we’d go down to the allotments or by the river and just come back for mealtimes.

2005

Two of my favourite celebritie­s to interview on Blue Peter were Ewan McGregor [pictured] and Brad Pitt. They were lovely. Chris Martin earned a gold badge for his charity work. You have to do something exceptiona­l to get that or represent your country, like the Queen, who also has a gold badge. When she came to the studio, a SWAT team checked all the cupboards and went over the make-up room with a fine-tooth comb.

2019

Emmy My husband Charlie Brooker has won three Awards for his Channel 4 series Black Mirror – here we are at the ceremony. I met Charlie at the Edinburgh Television Festival and we got married in Las Vegas in 2010. My parents didn’t mind it being just the two of us – Mum married in her teens and here I was in my 30s, so they were just desperate for me to get married.

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