BBC One 'My Story'

03 October 2009

My Story is a major competition being run by the BBC to find the nation's most remarkable true stories, inviting the whole country to tell and share their real life stories. Fifteen of the most compelling stories will be told in a major series on BBC One in 2010 and five winners will see their experiences published as paperback books.

An important part of the BBC's promotional effort is a series of Roadshows up and down the country, which include interviews and Q&A sessions with celebrities who recount their experiences and pass on their advice to those who are looking to enter the competition. Others appearing with Aisleyne in Middlesbrough were Blue Peter legend Peter Duncan, TV agony aunt Denise Robertson and The Apprentice's Lorraine Tighe.

Just getting to the event had in fact provided an Aisleyne with some extra "stories". On her train journey North the evening before, a crowd of rather noisy squaddies had joined the train, then on a very blustery Saturday morning when Aisleyne got into the car taking her from her Hotel to the venue, the force of the wind against the open doors blew the car forward.

Shortly after she arrived, Aisleyne gave a radio interview to Look North, who were broadcasting live from the event. Unfortunately it had to be cut short as the sound crew needed to set up Aisleyne's radio mike, ear piece etc for the rest of the day. The highlight was a 30 minute interview on stage with the BBC's newsreader/presenter Asad Ahmad, in front of an audience and TV cameras, amidst a full-scale BBC Outside Broadcast set-up.

These days, of course, Aisleyne is a seasoned performer in front of the TV cameras, so she took it all in her stride and made an excellent impression on both the public and on the BBC production staff, who were all highly complimentary. "She's really nice, lovely." said one BBC reporter, as Aisleyne was talking about writing her autobiography. She recounted that while her spelling and grammar weren't very good, she had found the writing experience very therapeutic. Which was of course an ideal message to get across to those who were perhaps nervous about sitting down to write "their story".

While the interview proceeded, large monitors around the compound had images of the full cover of Aisleyne's autobiography "Surviving Guns, Gangs and Glamour". And when there was a Q&A session after the interview the members of the public seemed very knowledgable about her. The first questioner asked about to her appearance in Dead Set, in particular about her "zombie" make-up for that programme.

She certainly got on very well with interviewer Asad Ahmad, finding that they share a common interest in tackling the problem of guns and knives in London.

At end of a long day, a tired but pleased Aisleyne headed off on the long journey home.

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