£ ME M and my MONEY

TELEVISION presenter Lucy Alexander has made millions of pounds from bricks and mortar – but she would spend it all on a cure for spinal cord injuries if it meant her paralysed daughter could walk again.

Alexander has been presenting daytime TV programme Homes Under The Hammer for the past 12 years, but her TV career began at the age of nine when she starred in an advert for Fairy soap.

She went on to drama school and famously appeared in Chesney Hawkes’ 1991 music video The One And Only, before landing a job as a presenter of the game show It’s A Knockout.

In 2000, she married ex-Premier League footballer Stewart Castledine, 42, and they now have two children, Kitty, 13, and Leo, ten.

Five years ago, Kitty – then aged just seven – was paralysed from the waist down after she suffered a sudden and severe attack of transverse myelitis, a rare neurological disease. It permanently damaged her spinal cord and left her fighting for life. Experts believe it may have been triggered by a simple viral infection.

Ever since, Alexander, 44, has been a keen supporter of the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (nsif.org.uk), a charity dedicated to funding research into a cure for spinal cord injuries.

Here, she talks openly about how her daughter’s illness has had an impact on her finances.