I want to be like Attenborough & keep working... I just can’t see myself retiring
SI’m no good at being the centre of attention so it will be a bit odd
It’s a huge milestone. 40 years is massive. TV can be notoriously pretty ruthless and people can come and go
I have still got lots to do and lots of people to talk to Lorraine says she has no plans to stop
He has notched up four decades in the spotlight after making her debut on TV-aM back in 1984, going on to become one of TV’s most recognisable faces. now lorraine Kelly’s long and varied career is to be recognised at the BaFTas.
The 64-year-old will receive a Special award on Sunday to commemorate her unstoppable broadcasting career.
and lorraine shows no sign of resting on her laurels. “i don’t think i would ever retire,” she said. “i look at people like Jane goodall, who i interviewed recently. The amazing lady who works with chimpanzees, she’s 90 years old.
“i look at David attenborough, i look at people like Michael Palin, and they still work really, really hard because they love what they do. They still have a curiosity and they want to learn things.
“i have still got lots to do and lots of people to talk to.”
in 40 years on the box, lorraine has reported on every big event in recent history, from the 1988 lockerbie air disaster to the King’s Coronation. She has interviewed prime ministers, royalty and Hollywood stars.
not bad for a reporter who first started as a trainee on the east Kilbride news before landing a job at BBC Scotland as a researcher.
She applied to be TV-aM’s Scottish correspondent in 1984.
it was here that she met her future husband, cameraman Steve Smith, and now their daughter Rosie, 29, is expecting her first baby in august.
Lorraine says becoming a grandmother is very much the icing on the cake. “We’re really, really looking forward to it,” she said. “it’s the most exciting thing that has ever happened to our family in a long time because there have not been that many babies.
“i will just have to make sure that i don’t interfere too much, that i’m not too much of a nuisance! i’ve just said to her, ‘i will be here for you, i’m here for you, anything you need.’
“We’ve got that kind of relationship that if i was annoying her, she would say, ‘enough, go home!’”
lorraine has had her own iTV show since 2010, which is still a ratings hit after all these years.
it’s little wonder that bosses have had no desire to change such a winning formula. But the presenter says she is at peace if that day ever comes.
“There will come a stage one day, when they want to make a change and get someone else in and even if that happens i won’t retire completely, i will always either be writing or doing something for radio,” she said.
“it’s a huge milestone, 40 years is massive. TV can be notoriously pretty ruthless and people can come and go.”
But now her eyes are on this weekend, where lorraine is also up for nomination in the daytime category. and it will very much be a family affair.
“Steve’s coming, Rosie’s coming. a lot of people i’ve worked with over the years are going to be there, it will be a lovely night and quite emotional,” she said.
She says the nerves will also doubtless kick in… not least as she is “not very good with the whole red carpet thing”.
She adds: “i’m not particularly good at being the centre of attention so that will be a bit odd. But i’m having a dress made for me and i hope that will work and i’ve got some cracking shoes.
“i always find, if you’re slightly nervous and you’re standing at a podium, and you’ve got high heels, your wee legs just wobble. So i’ve got some lovely shoes.”
The award is all the more sweet, lorraine says, given the sacrifices to family life she has made along the way. “i could never take Rosie to school, and i would half-kill myself to make sure i was at the school play,” she says.
“i remember the nativity play she was in when she was about two-and-a-half, three years old. i did a radio show back
then and I said to them, ‘I am really sorry I can’t come in because something enormously important was happening and I need to go straight from work.’
“I said I’d got somebody to fill in, just for that one day but they were like, ‘No, sorry, you can’t miss the show.’ I replied, ‘Look, I’m really sorry but if it comes to the punch, and you are asking me to choose between seeing my daughter in her Nativity play, and working – there is no choice.
“I couldn’t tell you anything about the guests, it’s been so long ago, but I can tell you every nanosecond in my head of that Nativity play.” Lorraine, originally from Glasgow’s Gorbals, recalled other bumps in the road along the way – not least the time spent away from the family while she was working in London.
“When Rosie was 12, they all went back up to Scotland for her to go to secondary school, and there have been times when I’ve thought to myself when I was working in London and they were up there, that was quite hard,” she explained.
“But it means we have got a very very close bond, but equally she has a very close bond with her dad, because they had that time together. I was always there when I needed to be there but that was all the years when I was commuting.
“Thank God for the London City to Dundee flight. That was like my bus!”
■ The BAFTA Television Awards are on Sunday, 7pm, on BBC1.