Penny Smith: Sofa so good for TV favourite

6:50am Saturday 9th August 2008

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A WASHED-UP breakfast TV presenter in her 40s who makes terrible jokes, gets the sack and worries she'll never work again? Could be a plot for a novel based on any number of telly presenters.

But surely not Penny Smith, the bright, beautiful and witty GMTV newsreader and presenter who has been doing the job for 15 years? She has now written her debut novel, Coming Up Next, based on her years in the industry and the types she has met along the way.

But Smith herself has always feared being sacked, she tells me in the small dressing room in the bowels of GMTV she shares with weathergirls Andrea McLean and Clare Nasir.

"Ever since I started working I've worried about being sacked. I haven't actually been sacked from anywhere so I've no idea why I'm so obsessed with the thought of it."

Today, looking as bright and breezy as the floral print dress she is wearing, she tells me that although she picked a career in an industry full of insecurities, she wouldn't give it up for the world.

"Television is exciting," she says. "I can't think of many other industries where you meet so many movers and shakers, or those with incredible tales to tell. It's so life affirming. Television's full of glossy, shiny people. I like that. It's very tidy."

So, what would our longest serving newsreader on breakfast TV do if she were given the boot?

"The last thing in the world I would do if I got sacked is take to the bottle. I would never do that. I would pull my horns in, tighten my belt and get a job. I would also confront the press. Why bother trying to hide from them? They will track you down in the end."

Her career may be one thing for the public domain, but her private life is something she has never discussed, although she's been in a relationship with actor Vince Leigh for seven years. Former boyfriends have included Rory Bremner and Paul McKenna.

"I just don't feel comfortable talking about something that involves somebody else in that way," she says, simply.

Penny is good pals with other media darlings including Mariella Frostrup, so she knows what it's like to be followed by paparazzi photographers.

"I'm a journalist so I know the other side as well, but I hate being 'papped'. I went off on holiday to Barbados with Ingrid Tarrant.

"It is notorious for photographers, which is why I generally don't go on the beach. But Ingrid loves the beach, we were papped and there appeared a picture of me in a bikini - and I do so hate those photographs. They make you feel so exposed.

"But on the other hand it comes with the job. I'm well paid and I love my work and it's a price worth paying."

Her debut novel centres on Katie Fisher, a clever, articulate and somewhat cynical presenter of a popular breakfast show, who is replaced by a pretty young back-stabber who couldn't come up with an intelligent question if it was handed to her on an autocue.

The story shows the power of appearances on TV, yet Penny says she doesn't worry about her looks or her weight any more than any other woman (but being slim, attractive and looking at least 10 years younger than her 49 years, she wouldn't).

However, she has lied about her age throughout her career, she admits.

"Now I'm saying I'm 63! People judge you on how old you are. I know I do. I'm as bad as everyone else."

She's not planning a big landmark 50th birthday bash on her birthday in September because she intends to continue lying about her age, she jokes.

She puts her youthful appearance down to genes, the fact that she does a lot of yoga and doesn't wear make-up outside work and also feels that having to rise at 4am has saved her from her worst excesses as she can't drink during the week.

"I keep off caffeine and alcohol during the week and I drive a lot at the weekends, so I don't drink much. If I hadn't got into TV I'd probably look like some awful old raisin with badly-dyed hair."

She says that the book is based on 'types' of personalities in television rather than individuals - no mention of Kate Garraway, Eamonn Holmes, Andrew Castle or Fiona Phillips.

Penny agrees there are egos in TV, but says no more so than in other professions. "There will always be shenanigans and politicking going about in all sorts of industries, even in small companies," she argues.

To cope with her unusual working hours, Penny has a strict regime. She gets up at 4am and when her shift finishes goes home to West London and sleeps from 11am to 3pm and then again from midnight until 4am. It's a split pattern which works for her, she says.

"I read to get to sleep and wear eye shades and earplugs. I do the whole rigmarole twice a day, cleaning teeth and putting on my pyjamas. The only downside is that parties generally are just getting going as I have to leave."

She recognises that commercial breakfast TV has never been heavyweight, but has never wanted to venture into more in-depth, high-brow programmes.

"I'm too thick, really," she says with a laugh. "I'm like most journalists. I know an awful little about an awful lot.

"I could never see myself doing Newsnight or anything that involved talking about quantum physics. Maybe I'm not prepared to put in the effort."

Born in Nottinghamshire, one of four children, Penny's family moved to Rutland when she was a child. She left home at 17 and went to France for a year before returning to become a cub reporter at the Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

She later got jobs at Radio Hong Kong and after extensive travelling returned home to resume her journalistic career.

Her parents have lived in Cyprus for the last 20 years and their home there became a haven for Penny to focus on writing the book.

"They've gone completely Med," she says. "It was a very early retirement for my dad, who was an engineer with a company in Grantham.

"It was April and raining and I was a bit bored, so I just started writing my fourth book. I wrote the first six chapters when I was there and then thought nothing more about it."

But when her friend, author Victoria Hislop, wife of Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, introduced Penny to her literary editor, within a short time she had a two-book deal.

Coming Up Next is her fourth attempt at a novel - she started three beforehand but they were never finished. This deal means she will have to knuckle down to complete the second book, which will see the return of Katie Fisher.

"It will be a sort of What Katie Did Next," Penny quips, "involving more chaos in television."

Coming Up Next, by Penny Smith, is published by Harper Perennial, priced £6.99. Available now.