Lorraine Kelly has marked 25 years as a mainstay of British breakfast television, revealing that her big break came after her sensitive reporting on the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The 59-year-old presenter told BBC Scotland's Stark Talk that she had initially no desire to host a sofa-based show, preferring her role as a roving Scotland correspondent for TV-am.
Kelly, who grew up in Glasgow's Gorbals, said she was content with her job until the Lockerbie disaster changed her career path. 'The fact that dreadful, horrendous, terrorist atrocity resulted in me getting one of the best jobs ever,' she said, acknowledging the irony. Her reporting impressed the editor, who thought 'the wee girl from Scotland' could present the flagship morning show.
Despite her success, Kelly admitted she was not fiercely ambitious. 'When they asked me down for a week, it was not something that I desperately wanted. Maybe that worked in my favour,' she said. Within a year of her first stand-in role, she became a main presenter and has since survived two franchise changes, from TV-am to GMTV and later Daybreak.
Kelly also reflected on her upbringing, born to teenage parents in the Gorbals. Her father, a TV repairman, stood up to her grandmother's wish for adoption, making him her hero. The family later moved to East Kilbride, where she began her journalism career at the East Kilbride News before joining BBC Scotland, where she was told her Glasgow accent was unsuitable for broadcasting.
Now married to cameraman Steve Smith, whom she met at TV-am, Kelly commutes from their home in Dundee. She credits her parents for teaching her to read and write before school and for improving their circumstances, saying she 'could not have had a better childhood.'
