Anne Robinson's mother, a cross between Robert Maxwell and Mother Teresa, dominated her family's lives and taught them lessons so mixed that life had to be re-learnt. When Annie became a younger reporter in Fleet Street, her mother brought her a mink coat and told her to have a facial once a month.
Annie's early success almost ended in her destruction. A doomed marriage helped her on her way from good Catholic girl to roaring drunk and to an agonising, secret custody battle for her two-year-old daughter Emma. It is an episode that still haunts - as Annie says, "There are some lows you never forget." She shrank to a bare six stone, but began to get help and triumphantly returned to take a second go at life. And made it work.
