Mum would be Riley proud of me...

Emmerdale's Lisa doing it for her lost loves

- TOM BRYANT

SITTING in her hotel room enjoying her last moments of luxury before entering the I'm a Celebrity jungle, Lisa Riley cannot stop thinking about her late mum.

Assigned a 24/7 chaperone to look after her since she landed earlier this week in Queensland, Australia, the subject of Cath is all the pair have nattered about.

For Lisa, it has been oddly comforting to be so far from home yet so close to those memories.

She says: “It’s been lovely just talking about my mum and how proud she would be. I can't help feel that maybe it is my mum in heaven giving me a message to do the show. She would be saying, ‘Go on, knock them dead and just have a laugh’.

The pair were incredibly close and spoke at least 10 times a day on the phone before Cath died from cancer in 2012. She was just 57 and the loss remains raw for Lisa.