Fiona Bruce: A national treasure

6:50am Saturday 18th October 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

THE prospect of meeting Fiona Bruce fills me with dread. She's a bit of an icon for any female journalist and I'm bound to trip up when I'm walking through the door, or run out of tape halfway through our chat.

For obvious reasons, I expect the BBC Ten O'Clock News presenter to look perfectly groomed and powerfully dressed in a well-cut suit.

So it's a surprise when she greets me in a trendy retro summer dress and sandals without a hint of makeup.

Fiona's in a very good mood, partly because she's recently taken over from Michael Aspel on Antiques Roadshow, which she loves.

She immediately puts me at ease with a story about a couple who got married to the famous theme tune.

"Can you believe it?" she says, with a giggle.

"They were a delightful pair and he was a huge fan of the show, still is. He was really laughing about it and said, 'I know this makes us sound completely desperate and sad. When I saw my wife standing in the doorway and I could feel the tears come into my eyes'.

"And suddenly the theme tune started and he said the tears turned to tears of laughter and everyone burst out laughing as she walked down the aisle. It was hilarious!"

At 44, Fiona has carved a niche for herself as one of the most reliable - and graceful - faces of the BBC, presenting News At Six, then Ten, as well as Crimewatch.

Antiques Roadshow has allowed Fiona to let her hair down a bit more on screen and that was all part of it's appeal, she says.

"It's much more fun, I have much more of a laugh," she admits, "and it's not me being serious, it's just me being myself and hopefully that's ok.

"Professionally, if you get offered a show where you're the sole presenter and you get six million viewers and you like it, you're not going to say no, let's face it. It's a bit of a no-brainer.

"But even without all that, it's very nice to do something where you're not talking about death and destruction and famine and war and floods. That's lovely, I mean that's REALLY nice actually, and that was part of its appeal.

"And now I'm in it, it's an even bigger part of its appeal than I had anticipated."

The familiar format sees hordes of people turn up to shows all around the country with weird and wonderful possessions in tow.

Experts mull over the more interesting objects and the pay-off, quite literally, is finding out how much they're worth, often accompanied with astonished looks and gasps from the bewildered owner.

"There have been some extraordinary things that people brought along, which have turned out to be enormously valuable," says Fiona, in that eloquent voice.

"Some people brought along a painting they literally found on a tip 20 years ago and it was worth between £20,000 and £30,000.

"Another guy brought a painting he had inherited from his aunt. Our art expert described it as the most significant painting he'd ever seen on the roadshow and it was worth £200,000."

Then there are the items which are not as valuable, but still pique Fiona's interest for different reasons.

"When I was in Belfast for my second show, someone towards the end of the day brought along a signed copy of the Northern Ireland peace agreement in Irish and it was signed by all the politicians at the time, so there was Tony Blair, Gerry Adams, David Trimble and Martin McGuinness.

"I had done so much about that in the news and quite a few broadcasts from Stormont about the peace process and its faltering steps to that point, so to have it my hand... it's a moment in history. And all their signatures, people like Gerry Adams were right next to David Trimble when they'd been poles apart politically, it was just an amazing thing for me."

Not quite so amazing was the snake-adorned porcelain skull which made Fiona jump and the ram's head snuff box: "A bit of shocker, but I ended up taking snuff from it and that was actually good fun."

Inevitably, there are people who care more about the money than the antiques.

"Some of them are just going to hawk them and fair play to them really. Most of the stuff that people bring is worth diddly-squat, because most people don't have a Faberge egg lurking on their mantelpiece.

"A lot of people don't want to sell them, but there are some people who had enormous valuations for objects they don't particularly like and the money will help them a lot. One woman had this teddy bear and it's paid for her daughter's wedding, she's bought some premium bonds and invested in an orphanage. Great!"

A BBC Sunday night institution for the last 30 years, Antiques Roadshow is something of an antique in itself.

In true form, Fiona says she wasn't daunted about replacing Michael Aspel, who had been at the helm since 2000.

"My career by it's very nature has been one of taking over from people. I took over from Jill [Dando, on Crimewatch] after she'd been murdered, I took over from Martin Lewis on the Six, so it comes with the territory.

"Michael was fantastic on the roadshow as well as being an incredibly nice man, so it was never going to be easy. I don't know if I've put my own stamp on it. People don't switch on the roadshow to watch me.

"It has a different feel to it because I'm a different person, but it's not a question of improving the roadshow. I could possibly make it worse," she jokes.

However the mother-of-two admits that she did worry about how much time she would be spending away from home filming the show.

"To be honest, I had quite a bit of trepidation about how I would cope with the travelling, because I had deliberately chosen not to do that kind of thing since I'd had children.

"Before I had children I was on the road most of the time and it was a deliberate choice not to do that. But I'm only away one night a week, with two very long days either side of that, so it's not a big deal.

"I made two other sizeable programmes while I was filming the first two-thirds of the show, a Bill Gates documentary and Who Do You Think You Are? and I was away a lot, so I wouldn't choose to do that again."

Fans may love the show, but Fiona says her children with managing director husband Nigel Sharrocks, Mia, 6, and Sam, 10, are apparently "unimpressed" by her new roadshow role.

"They couldn't care less, it's just 'mummy's job'. The high-def trailer impressed my son a bit, but the only thing that really impressed him was when I was on Top Gear, partly because I got him a day out of school to come and watch.

"My daughter would only be impressed if I was in High School Musical or Doctor Who. That would really blow them away!"