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Lorraine Kelly Between You & Me
 FEISTY LORRAINE'S FIGHT TO THE TOP By Sarah O'Meara
Born in the slums of Glasgow and now one of the most famous faces on television, Lorraine Kelly has grafted her way to the top. The presenter explains why work is the best medicine in her new autobiography Between You And Me.
Contrary to popular belief, Lorraine Kelly didn't fall to earth and land on a well-lit sofa. In her self-titled autobiography the daytime television presenter reveals that behind the perfect image is a woman who started life in the Glasgow slums. "People see me sitting on the sofa with my pink lip gloss and don't know that I've done anything else," she admits.
Having been instilled with what she calls 'the Calvinistic work ethic of the Kelly family', Lorraine - who will be 50 next year - has become one of the most popular faces on television. After 24 years of listening to other people's tales she has finally decided to tell her own story - and it's no less heart-warming than those regularly featured on her GMTV morning show, LK Today. "My grandmother wanted me to be adopted and sent down south," she laughs. "But my dad was having none of it."
Lorraine started life in a one-room house in an area of Glasgow known as the Gorbals and says she had an incredibly happy childhood. "My mum was just a wee girl straight out of convent when she found out she was pregnant," she says with a smile. "She'd just got her first job selling records. My dad was only 17 years old when he stood up to my grannie in his cheap suit, held my mum's hand, and said, 'No. We're going to have this baby and make a go of it'. And they're celebrating their golden wedding anniversary this year."
She's still incredibly close to her parents and says her hectic life as a mainstream TV presenter, newspaper journalist, loving wife to cameraman Steve and mum to 14-year-old Rosie, would be impossible without them. "My mum and dad are fantastic. If Steve's working and I'm working, or if we go on holiday and need someone to look after my dogs, there they are. When I was growing up they both worked really hard and whatever little money they had, they spent on my brother and I. Despite everything, my mother always kept the house looking immaculate and made sure we all dressed well. We wouldn't have been able to achieve what we've achieved without them. That goes without saying."
Lorraine was taught to read before she got to primary school and her parents instilled in her a passionate interest in the outside world. When the family finally moved out of Glasgow to a new home in East Kilbride, her horizons broadened even more. But she explains that the road there was less than easy. She joined the East Kilbride News straight out of secondary school, then moved to BBC Scotland. At the age of 25 she headed to TV-am as their Scottish correspondent and reported news from all over the country.
"I used to cover everything; I was head of news, sport, politics, rubber ducks... because there was only me. And I was covering a whole country without a mobile phone which meant I really had to work. I had to do my research, be on my toes and know where all the phone boxes were."
Lorraine says that although attitudes have changed, she never minded being the only woman in her field. "If I ever came across any sexist attitudes, I'd just used it to my advantage. For example I did the sports coverage. And sports guys would answer your killer questions about football because they were so taken aback that you knew anything about it. "It was unheard for women to do things like that back then. But to be honest, I was too busy working to worry about it. Because I've always worked in really tiny places, it's always been about sharing the workload."
During her time at TV-am Lorraine covered two of the biggest news stories of her career; the Lockerbie air crash in December 1988 and the massacre at Dunblane Primary School on March 13, 1996.
Her sensitive reporting style won her many fans and in 1990 Lorraine was asked to be the main presenter of TV-am's Good Morning Britain with Mike Morris. But she admits it was a hard price to pay for career development. "It happens to a lot of people in our industry," she says sadly. "When you have to do the terrible stories, when you are tested, that's when you get your break. I honestly thought that Lockerbie was the worse thing I'd ever have to do; I never thought I could do anything worse than that. But then course I did, with Dunblane."
Working as a presenter for GMTV at the time, she did the whole show from the primary school the day after the terrible tragedy. "That was not the easiest thing to do," she says, after a pause. "If you think of what those families were going through... it was a bad time."
Sensitive when it counts and level-headed in moments of chaos, readers of her book will soon realise that one thing that Lorraine has never had any time for is 'nonsense'. On the subject of everything from strained relations between work colleagues, her weight or acting like a diva when famous, she makes it clear that she gives all of it short shrift. "I've never had time for any of that. I have the attitude that you are professional and you do your job. And it might be the best job in the world but it's still your job, and at the end of the day you go home to your family."
After living in Berkshire for many years, Lorraine moved permanently to Dundee in 2006 with her husband Steve and daughter Rosie. Although always appearing fresh-faced on television, she maintains a punishing work schedule and commutes regularly between London and Dundee. Lorraine does admit that occasionally her dogged determination to go into the office, has got the better of her. "I've had one hangover at work. I went for lunch with John Hannah and a whole bunch of his pals and we just blethered and blethered and drank far too much. Of course I should not have gone in the next day; I should have phoned in with food poisoning. But the thing is it never even crossed my mind not to go in. "It was similar to being ill as a child and mum would say, 'Ach. You'll  be fine'. And I went in with the hangover from hell."
However she adds that sometimes her determination to work can be more of a serious problem. "I had a miscarriage in 2001 which was difficult but we got over it. You're told it happens to so many people but that actually makes you feel worse. And people forget that it happens to the blokes as well. They think they're going to be a dad and so they suffer too."
But in characteristic fashion, the star banished all feelings of self-pity and a time to grieve, in favour of being professional. "My trouble was that I said, 'I'm going back to work' after a few weeks. I think I should have taken a wee bit of time out. But that's the way my brain works. I just think: 'Right, let's get on with it'."
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