One Show presenter Alex Jones says she was “too scared” as a young girl to admit she wanted to work in television.
The broadcaster, 49, said growing up in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, she never believed such a career would be possible.
“When I was a little girl growing up in south Wales, I thought I’d like to be a presenter but I was too scared to say anything because nobody in south Wales became broadcasters, especially not on national television,” she remembered.
Jones, who has been hosting the BBC’s flagship magazine show since 2010, got fired from two television jobs after university before getting her first break aged 21.
Recalling a day where she presented from Windsor Castle, she said: “I really thought about that little girl that day and thought ‘I can’t believe that this is what I do for a job’.”
She didn’t make it as a TV researcher, but impressed in an audition for the BBC’s first digital channel, BBC Choice, and went on to present for the Welsh language channel S4C.
The One Show celebrates 20 years on air this month with a week of special programmes.
