I didn’t really have one - my own name was ridiculous enough, nobody was going to mistake me for someone else. Having said that, when I was about 14 and a Sunday School teacher at Cathcart Old Parish Church in Glasgow, the children called me Miss Smi
le, which I thought was sweet.
IF YOU COULD ONLY HAVE ONE DESSERT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Rice pudding. Home-made with cream, nutmeg and brown on top - yummy. But I almost always buy it, as nobody else in the house eats it.
WHO IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN YOUR LIFE? My husband, Alex. He is the one I look to for approval, the one who will give me it straight if I do something on TV that’s not so good. He is also quite a levelling influence on me - he laughs at my job and says: "You’re overpaid, under-worked, and then they send you flowers and tell you that you were fab." So I say: "But I was fab!"
WHAT DO YOU KEEP UNDER YOUR BED? Nothing - it’s a divan base, no space to store rubbish.
I’m incredibly tidy. I had a girlfriend to stay the other weekend, and I lifted up her elbow to clean under it as I was wiping up, and I thought: ‘Come on!’
DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER? No, I’m a bath girl, though I’ll do showers if there is no alternative. I prefer my bath last thing at night, candles, bubbles, and any old chill-out album that’s lying around.
ARE YOU RELIGIOUS? No - even though I was a Sunday School teacher. I find it hard to rationalise the idea of a god when I see how some bad people seem to skip through life, while horrible things happen to innocent people.
DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST DATE? Yes. A boy called Martin, when I was about 12. It was a class party, and I went as his partner. I remember wanting to die of shame because my mother put me in a white furry hat with pompoms. Little girls these days are young ladies, but I was still a little girl at that age - I wasn’t really interested in boys.
IF I GAVE YOU AN ELEPHANT, WHERE WOULD YOU HIDE IT? In my car - a seven-seater metallic gold Chrysler Voyager - I can fit anything in there, it’s never failed me yet.
TV presenter Carol Smillie, 42, lives in Glasgow with husband Alex Knight and their children, Christie, nine, Robbie, six, and Jodie, four.
