As one of Britain's best known TV and radio personalities, Gloria
Hunniford requires little introduction. From chat show and current
affairs host to presenter of consumer and lifestyle programmes, Gloria
is one of the few broadcasters who can genuinely claim to embrace the
spectrum of popular culture. Now, having just been made an OBE in the
Queen's Birthday Honours and celebrating 70 years in show-business,
Gloria is ready to tell her story. Gloria has had many lives - starting
out as a singer aged seven alongside her father in a troupe of
entertainers, before taking the brave step to travel and live in Canada
as a teenager, which broadened her horizons in a way she never could
have imagined, coming from a religiously divided Northern Ireland. Back
home at the age of twenty, following the release of her first record
that went into the Ulster charts, she was offered a job at BBC Belfast,
which started her on a career trajectory she could only have dreamed
about in those early years singing in front of her Bakelite radio,
hoping someone would hear her. Working through bombs, bullets and
barricades, and the turmoil of the Troubles in the seventies, Gloria
soon became a firm fixture on both radio and TV, especially with her
nightly show, Good Evening Ulster. It wasn't long before Gloria's charm,
wit and tenacity were spotted over the Irish sea, becoming the first
ever woman to have a daily radio programme in 1982, presenting on BBC
Radio 2 continuously for the next 13 years. Since then, Gloria's career
has blossomed, and she has become widely regarded as one of the most
respected names in the industry. In My Life Gloria will, for the first
time, explore her life from her humble beginnings to the much-loved
national treasure she is today.
