I was an incredibly good girl and my mother was incredibly opinionated: I basically did whatever she told me to do! For years I wanted to be a doctor but then I realised I absolutely hated chemistry and you couldn’t be one without chemistry. So I had a crisis after my O-Levels where I thought ‘Oh God what am I going to be then?’ So suddenly my mum said: ‘Right, that’s it then, you’re going to be a lawyer.’ She’s of that generation that absolutely idolised professions – she always called our family doctor by his first name.
But I wasn’t convinced at all by law when I graduated. I was still in touch with some doctors who my family used to live next door to. The husband of that couple went to Cambridge with Helena Kennedy QC. He said ‘Oh we’ve got Helena’s number, ring her, she’ll tell you what to do!’ At the time she was presenting a programme called Heart of the Matter, I absolutely loved it. I wanted to be her. I rang her from a phonebox (in the days long before mobile) and she was so lovely. She said: ‘The world needs women in the law. Finish your legal qualifications, go into the law, then go into television from there.’ So in a way, my legal career was all down to Helena Kennedy. I was lucky enough to do a couple of great criminal cases with her when I was training.
