GREAT SCOTT

From the house she has lovingly brought back to life on the island of Majorca, pioneering TV personality Selina Scott looks back on making history in front of the news cameras - and the famous faces she came to call friends

- ROSALIND POWELL

She helped pave the way for women in TV and has been an inspiration to many. Now, at 73, Selina Scott is still just as impressive and beautiful as she was at the height of her career. Yet ask her about her appearance and the usually unflappable former broadcaster and journalist becomes decidedly flustered.

"Honestly, I don't take much notice," she says with a wave of her hand. "At this time of year, I always feel washed out, so I'll put make-up on in the morning. I eat well but I don't have an exercise routine - I tried and found it really boring.

But I keep going; I'm active, I walk a lot. That's all I can say." There's always been a fascination with Selina for both her beauty and charisma. As the "golden girl" of the BBC in the 1980s, she was hounded by paparazzi and plagued by speculation about her private life - which she will never be drawn on. It was during this period of high visibility and attention that she bought her house in Majorca, in a rural part of the west coast of the Spanish island.

CHANGE OF SCENERY

"I was getting up at 3am and wanted somewhere to go to that was a complete change - a bolt-hole, a little refuge from all of that and the dark mornings," she explains as we sit in the bright living room. Her pretty three-bedroom property with a pool was off-grid and a "total wreck" when she found it, and took years to renovate.