Blue Peter star’s lessons in life
SHE was the face of children’s TV in the 1990s and the only Scottish woman to host the BBC’s flagship Blue Peter show.
Now Romana D’Annunzio has revealed why she shied away from the spotlight to become a teacher after shooting to stardom at 23.
Miss D’Annunzio, now 46, co-hosted Blue Peter – which marked its 60th birthday on Tuesday – from March 1996 until February 1998 alongside Tim Vincent, Katy Hill, Richard Bacon and Konnie Huq.
These days she teaches English and drama to teenagers, many of them British, in Dubai.
She said: ‘Many ask, “Why did you leave TV?”. It’s good for them to understand that you don’t have to have one path in your life.
‘But if you’re a Blue Peter presenter, that’s something which stays with you for the rest of your life. Anybody of a certain age who grew up in the UK will know that because it’s part of our childhood and we all remember the Blue Peter presenters we watched as a kid.’
Miss D’Annunzio, born in Edinburgh, obtained her teaching degree from Glasgow University in 2009. She taught in Glasgow and Edinburgh before moving to Dubai in 2012.
She said: ‘It was a risk but it turned out well. I was attracted by the adventure, not the money – I’d earned a lot in my twenties and you don’t go into teaching for that.’
She added: ‘It was a great honour to have been chosen [to host the show].
‘Working on Blue Peter was so diverse. One minute I’d be in the studio flipping pancakes and the next minute doing a re-enactment of the Suffragette movement.’