Jackie Brambles
Now in their sixth year, The National Lottery Awards aim to recognise the incredible difference that Lottery-funded projects - both large and small - have made to people, places and communities, all across the UK. They celebrate the talent, hard work and amazing dedication of the people involved in running Lottery-funded projects.
There are seven different categories in this year’s Awards, and Jackie Brambles has been awarded the very honourable title of being an Ambassador For The National Lottery Awards this year, so we caught up with her to find out how things were going.
Hey Jackie, we all know that you are supporting the National Lottery Awards this year, how and why did you get involved?
People on the telly are in quite a fortunate position that we get asked to be involved in various projects and campaigns but what appealed to me about becoming an ambassador for the National Lottery Awards was that I got to do a lot of cheerleading about the truly amazing things a lot of unsung heroes were doing. I get sick to death reading about celebrities stubbing their toe or putting on 5 lbs so it's always a buzz to be able to shine a light on people who really do deserve some recognition for doing something important that makes a big difference to peoples lives.
As ambassador for the Awards, what unique thing or things do you think you will bring to the cause?
Oh blimey, I've no idea! I suppose what I hope I'll bring is an enthusiasm for the projects and the people nominated and hopefully that enthusiasm will communicate itself clearly enough to encourage the public to go online and vote. Go on - vote!
Without giving it up which one wins, do you have a favourite amongst the potential winners?
This question is so hard to answer as there are so many fantastic projects in the awards this year that are really making a difference. Each one of them has done incredibly well to get through to the finals and any one of them would make a very worthy winner.
Do you buy National Lottery tickets, and if so have you ever won?
I do buy lottery tickets, every week - sometimes twice and I am truly flabbergasted on a weekly basis that I don't win the jackpot. We have family discussions on how we'll spend it and we've agreed we'll take a year to tour the greatest golf courses of the world. This would make my husband very happy and - as there's always a 5 star luxury spa attached to the vast majority of these golf courses - it would make me and my blocked pores very happy too. Sadly, we keep losing - however I am a more gracious loser these days knowing, as I now do, that I contribute to the £25 million given to good causes every week in the UK.
You are also leaving our favourite daytime TV show, Loose Women, why did you decide to call it a day?
A couple of reasons really. I'd become involved in setting up a very exciting digital media business which was taking up more and more of my time. But as it was, I was struggling with doing my loose women work in London because my toddlers were becoming less and less thrilled with me disappearing from home in Scotland for 2 days a week. The loose women filming schedule was about to change which would have exacerbated the problem so it felt as though all roads were pointing to shifting my focus and trying to become the master of my own destiny !
On Loose Women you have the job of controlling some very strong personalities, such as Coleen Nolan and Carol Mcgiffin. How have you found that and what are the relationships like between you all?
I think that once you've built trust and earned respect, it's not as tough as you'd imagine. On loose women, our job is to voice our opinions (loudly) and not be shy about disagreeing with each other in the strongest possible terms - but you do have to have somebody steering the battleship or we'd just go round in circles. All the ladies on the panel appreciate that somebody has to take the helm, and I think because they trust me to do that, it gives them the freedom to let rip without worrying if it'll all end in tears!
What will you miss most about the show?
Off-camera, I'll miss the girls of course but we'll keep in touch and my new business will still bring me to London a couple of times a month so I'm sure we've a few "happy hours" ahead of us to look forward to! My favourite moments with the girls on the show are when we corpse, just become helpless with laughter due to some end-of-pier innuendo somebody has come out with. And I'll miss doing the interviews with our guests because I love interviewing interesting people. I even love interviewing seemingly uninteresting people because everybody's got a story and it's a challenge to eke it out of them.
You spent a lot of time working in the USA....how does this compare to working in the UK?
I was a much smaller fish in a vastly bigger pond when I worked in the USA, so the perks are better here! But, there's nowhere else on the planet that teaches you more about entertainment and marketing than hollywood and I feel very fortunate that I spent a long time there learning that side of the business - because it is a "business" first and foremost, the "show" part of it is the glittery, sprinkly stuff on top.
You're also a mother of two...how do you manage to juggle both a career and motherhood?
Like most working mothers I struggle....with piles of laundry, piles of to-do lists (that rarely get done) and piles of guilt. I wouldn't dare to assume that I had any winning formula to offer, I just hope that I'm doing ok as a mum and that they turn out to be happy people - because they've certainly made me happy. And given me piles, evidently.
How did you manage to get back into shape after being pregnant for so long without much of a break between your children?
This question makes me laugh. I'm not in any kind of shape, truly. Beneath this size 12 exterior is a rippling mass of jelly belly and mummy tummy. I haven't done a stroke of exercise in 4 years, which is disgraceful. I just look slim because I have literally been running up and down the stairs carrying babies for the past 3 years, so I burn a lot of calories and have biceps to turn Madonna green with envy. If I'd had the time to binge on junk, believe me I would have done it but I haven't sat down for 3 years and somehow that has kept me relatively slim - so in dietary terms, I'd highly recommend having 2 babies, 11 months apart! It doesn't do your face any favours, mind.
When you first started your career at BBC in 1988, you were the first female presenter to get your own prime time show on Radio 1, did you feel that, as a woman, this put a lot of pressure on you?
I was completely oblivious to that, to be honest. I felt enormous pressure to be interesting and unique on the radio when I was in my early twenties and looking back, I was clearly out of my depth at such a tender age. When I moved to the states in my mid-twenties, I moved into serious news journalism and that's when I first felt comfortable and capable. The OJ Simpson trial...happy days.
You’ve come a long way since those days, so what has been your happiest memory of working in the media over the past 20 years?
I started when I was 19, so I've been in this business for 23 years! I think finding out what you're good at is the key to enjoying your career and making it work for you. For me, facilitating conversations is what I'm good at. Whether that's at ground zero after 9/11, on the red carpet at the Oscars, in a movie star's Hollywood home or around the desk at Loose Women - any day I am given the opportunity to bring out people's stories in a way that makes them comfortable to reveal a little more than they intended, that is also interesting to listen to - that's a good day at the office.
Speaking abut that you were GMTV’s as their Hollywood correspondent and covered everything from presidential elections to the 9/11 events, how did you find it being ‘the face’ of USA for GMTV?
Small fish, big pond, hard work!
You must have chatted to some awesome people during your time over there, who stands out the most for you?
To be honest, I've a great almost photographic short term memory but a lousy long term memory so I can't keep track of which celebrities I've interviewed. I used to swear blind I hadn't interviewed so and so until my LA producer sat me down and made me watch the tape proving I had!
The stand out memories tend to be from the tragedies I've covered as a journalist and the normal people that were affected by it. There was a terrible mudslide in California that killed a lot of people and I remember the distress of the families who had lost somebody. I remember the haunted look in the firefighters faces as they trudged up the streets of New York, after 9/11, actually looking like ghosts because they were coated in white rubble dust.
I remember the desperation in the eyes of searching relatives, begging us to film them making their pleas to camera, thinking that their missing loved one had miraculously survived but lost their memory and might see them on TV. It felt cruel telling them we were a UK crew and couldn't help them but it would've been worse to film their agony knowing that there was no chance their missing relative was going to see British TV footage. Sorry they're not fluffier memories but I think I've done so many star interviews that were plugging their latest movies that very few stand out...they're all a big fabulous blur!
For more information about The National Lottery Awards and to find out which projects have made it through to the finals of the competition, visit www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards. You can also enter our competition to win two VIP tickets to The National Lottery Awards show on 5 September.