A Taste of Hunni

Tim Hutton shines a light on TV presenterGloria Hunniford's lesser-known singing career

- Tim Hutton

In a trailblazing career spanning more than seven decades, Gloria Hunniford is one of Britain's foremost figures in broadcasting, earning her national treasure status through her pioneering work on radio and television. Today, whether on the panel of Loose Women on ITV or presenting BBC's Rip Off Britain, Gloria is a constant and welcome presence on our television screens. However, this wasn't always Gloria's career path, for she began her professional life as a singer, and throughout her career, music has always played an integral role.

Gloria, once hailed as “Ireland's queen of song”, dreamed of being a singer from a very young age. “As a child of three or four, I used to stand on a chair singing for hours into an old Bakelite radio. It sat up on a shelf in our kitchen in Portadown, Northern Ireland and my theory was that if I could hear them, they could hear me, and one day the BBC would say: 'You. Singing Buttons and Bows. We want you.”

Her father, a semi-professional magician, encouraged the young Gloria to pursue her love of singing, inviting her to join him on the bill with the Mid Ulster Variety Group, performing across the country. “It was my dad who encouraged me to sing, and it was through his encouragement that it made me think there was an ongoing life in this. At the age of seven, he suggested I visit Miss Gail Sheridan, a concert-party pianist, who would teach me songs. My dad was a newspaper man by day and a magician at night, and through his encouragement, I joined the bill as a singer and sang songs like Buttons and Bows, and Powder Your Face With Sunshine”