Last updated 11:23, Saturday, 11 October 2008

Versatility is vital for Blue Peter presenters so it’s no surprise to find Helen Skelton on board as the programme celebrates its 50th birthday next week.

Helen Skelton

Dance teacher, actress, waitress, barmaid, PR consultant, shop assistant, radio presenter – perhaps there’s even some experience with sticky-backed plastic too.

Helen was brought up in the village of Kirkby Thore, eight miles east of Penrith.

Dad Richard is a farm consultant while mum Janet runs a local pre-school group.

Helen made her Blue Peter debut last month but at 25 she is already a veteran broadcaster, having started as a teenager presenting the children’s birthday slot on ITV Border.

Pushing herself forward and working hard have been hallmarks of her career.

And now she has proved that coming from a quiet corner of Cumbria need not be an obstacle to success in a London-based industry.

Helen attended Kirkby Thore Primary School and Appleby Grammar School, which she left in 2001 with A levels in French, history and psychology. She then gained a first class honours degree in journalism from Cumbria Institute of the Arts in Carlisle.

Her projects included a video report from a firemen’s picket line during the 2003 strike.

During her student years Helen supplemented her income by working as a waitress, a barmaid and in a sweet shop.

She is a qualified tap dance teacher who has taught in Penrith. Helen also worked as an extra in Manchester on programmes like Coronation Street and Cutting It.

She said: “Watch any old versions and you might see my elbow in the corner of a scene, if you're lucky of course!”

Then there was work experience and freelance reporting at Border, CFM and BBC Radio Cumbria.

After graduating in 2004 Helen had a brief spell working at Penrith-based public relations firm Four Square Marketing. “Then,” she recalled, “I decided journalism was where my true ambitions lay and returned to Radio Cumbria as a broadcast journalist with the bus team.”

She travelled all over the county on the BBC bus and obviously made a big impression. In May 2006, at the age of 22, she was named co-presenter with Gordon Swindlehurst of Radio Cumbria’s Breakfast Show.

For more than a year she got up in the early hours in time for the programme’s 6am start. Then at the end of 2007 Helen’s ambition and talent took her to London and a new challenge with children’s BBC programme Sportsround.

It was a dream job for this football fanatic. Helen’s older brother Gavin played for Carlisle United and Gretna and is now at Kilmarnock in the Scottish Premier League.

Grandad George is a lifelong Carlisle fan and in 2006 Helen nominated him as the club’s fan of the week. “He has dedicated his life to Carlisle United,” she said.

Helen’s boyfriend is footballer David Graham, who plays for Scottish Premier League team Hamilton. They met when David played for Gretna. The relationship led some newspapers to announce that Blue Peter’s new presenter was a “WAG”. Helen laughed it off. “The reality is that I spend Saturdays at cold football grounds watching people I love get grumpy.”

At Sportsround her interviewees included England footballer Frank Lampard and former England manager Steve McLaren. She also worked on Newsround and interviewed film stars like Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.

Blue Peter bosses approached Helen in June and asked her to audition. She recalled: “I was working full-time at Newsround throughout that so I was starting at 5am and working until 1pm and then going to do a 10-hour audition.”

But determination carried her through to become the 33rd presenter of Britain’s longest-running children’s programme.

One of Helen’s first jobs on the series saw her back in Cumbria to report from the World Gurning Championships at Egremont.

Blue Peter has already taken her to Alaska and Bangladesh. But however far from home she may go, it seems Cumbria will never be far from Helen’s heart.