Night & Day - Gail Force, Gail Porter on Marriage, Motherhood and Music.

When I arrive at the fashionable London eaterie that Gail Hipgrave (nee Porter) has chosen for our meeting, I almost miss her, she looks so, well, unremarkable. Bereft of make-up, with her hair scraped off her face in a casual ponytail and wearing jeans, a casual top and expensive trainers, the 5ft 4in presenter looks like any other teenager, until you remember that this specimen of adolescence is actually 30 years old.

'Children find me easy to talk to,'Gail is quick to point out, 'because when they see me on the street, they think I'm one of them.' She certainly has the energy of one - her legendary hyperactivity commonly sees her at the gym at 6am for a two-hour work-out. This Peter Pan image is exacerbated by her self-confessed lack of style when it comes to dressing - 'I'm the most unstylish person I've ever met' - together with her garrulous enthusiasm for all subjects under the sun. She admits, 'God, I really waffle.'

However, in this instance at least, appearances can be deceiving. Surrounding the enormous, almond-shaped, aquamarine eyes are an array of laughter lines., she's a child until she smiles. Gail is clearly voraciously ambitious though, she claims, she has calmed down a lot since her marriage. She wed Dan Hipgrave, guitarist with the pop band Toploader, on August 10.

'Ever since our wedding day, I've felt complete. I've found my soul mate and I feel totally calm. There is someone for me to go home to at night, which is lovely.' This is a far cry from Gail's announcement just over a year ago: 'I don't want a boyfriend, I don't want to get married and I don't want to have children.'

And the changes don't stop there. For the first time, Gail has hinted that children might be on the agenda: 'Yes, you never know,' she smiles, repeating the phrase three times. 'We get on so well. And there was me saying, "I'll never get a husband, I'll never be a mum",'she laughs.

Romance between the couple proceeded rapidly. They met on the set of Channel 4's TFI Friday last October and became engaged in February before tying the knot in Gail's native Portobello, outside Edinburgh.

In a bid to maintain their privacy, the couple refused a host of lucrative magazine offers for exclusive coverage of their wedding. 'It didn't matter how much money they offered, I did not want an OK!~style wedding,' Gail insists. 'I went to one once and there were people queuing up to get their pic tures taken. It was awful. Some people do the whole deal - the engagement, the wedding, the baby. I couldn't do it.' For emphasis, Gail says this four times - this down-to-earth girl is given to repetition.

Ill-informed rumours about the wedding filled the newspapers. Contrary to media reports, the nuptials were neither small nor cheap. Sixty eight guests saw the couple tie the knot at a register office, while another 300 came to the reception. 'It was really funny the way the press kept talking about "Gail and Dan's cheap wedding". I thought, "Having 350 guests is cheap? I don't think so! "'

Gail confesses that she was totally unprepared for the organisation involved: 'That was very, very stressful.' The seating plan was particularly problematic, given her parents' divorce during her twenties. 'When I found out there had to be a top table, I panicked.'

The top table ended up consisting of the couple; Gail's 'unbelievably cool' brother, Keith; Hipgrave's best man and Toploader's lead singer, Joe Washbourn; Hipgrave's parents and Gail's mother who was accompanied by her new boyfriend, Derek. Adhering to the mantra of the modern marriage, the couple split the organisation.. While Gail sorted out the table plan, H1pgrave took responsibility for the menu.

The day was a nerve-wracking ordeal for both of them. Gail, who readily admits to being 'very emotional', started crying upon seeing the crowd outside the register office before the ceremony. 'Half the town turned up and I didn't know what to do. I was nervous enough as it was.' Her nerves only got worse once she was inside. 'The registrar talks you through the ceremony beforehand. He was the most boring Scottish man I'd ever met and he started telling a few jokes. I said to him, "Get on with it. I want to get in there." He replied' - here Gail impersonates a very slow-speaking Scot --- No,we have to go through everything carefully." Afterwards, Dan told me he'd had the same experience. The registrar received the same abuse from both of us,'Gail laughs.

Once this was over, Gail was finally allowed to walk down the aisle on Keith's arm: 'I was yanking my dress, laughing then crying hysterically as I walked up to the altar. The registrar asked me, "Do you want to go into the back room to compose yourself?" and Dan said, "Are you all right?". I was just nervous - I was shaking all the way through the ceremony'

The stress continued during the reception. 'The party was a nightmare because there were loads of people I hadn't seen in ages and everyone wanted to talk to me. It was overwhelming. Dan just went off and got drunk.'

Gail relishes calling herself 'Mrs H1pgrave', and the marriage lends a maturity to the hitherto confirmed singleton. Aptly, the presenter is also moving into more serious programming. In July, Channel 4 aired Blind Man's Bluff in which three celebrities, including Gail, were fitted out with special glasses that block the wearer's vision and given white sticks. They then had to find their way from Blackpool to the London Eye. Over the course of two days, a 'blind' Gail struggled with eating meals, buying clothes and, travelling on public transport.

The low point came when she was led into a bollard by a group of schoolgirls whom she had asked to help her. However, it was not until she reached her destination that Gail broke down: 'I took my glasses off and realised that this man beside me [she had been accompanied from Euston to the Eye by a blind man] couldn't see. I didn't know what to do and I couldn't stop crying. Dan was waiting for me but when he saw me with the stick, he became very upset and went off and sat somewhere else. I was crying my eyes out thinking, "It's not fair. I'm just so lucky".'

Unlike many celebrities, Gail does not feel the need to hide her emotions and if she found the experience emotionally draining so, too, did her audience. 'Some builders came up to me the day after the programme was screened. One of them said, "You had me in tears last night watching that show, Gail." I didn't think I'd hear that from a group of builders.'

Gail's role in Blind Man's Bluff and her resultant decision to front this year's Firework Safety Campaign have defied those who pigeonhole her as one of a group of Identikit, young blonde, female television pres enters who have no career outside the teenage magazine show format.

She is feistily articulate in defending herself against her detractors: 'The colour of your hair is not going to get you a job in television. But people love to stereotype everyone. When I first started, people would say, "Gail's a ladette." I would ask why and they'd say, "Well, you go out." "Oh, of course," I'd say. "I've been to a couple of pubs, of course I'm a ladette." And people who treat me like a child because I'm petite also get quite a shock.'

She believes she has suffered at the hands of the media, with some reports claiming that her talents lie in doing nude photo shoots and exhibiting girly, childish quirks. She alludes to a female journalist who interviewed her, then 'totally annihilated me, saying "Gail's hanging on to her childhood". That journalist was very mature. She was one of those people who comes across as very sensible, like a lot of British people who find it difficult to relax. There are a lot of uptight British men who think, "I must give the impression that I'm sensible so I must have a nice, sensible life and a sensible job. Then I'll go home, dress in sadomasochist clothes and beat my wife." Everything happens behind closed doors. I would love to know what some MPs get up to when they're not at Westminster.'

Gail makes no apologies for her childish fads. She candidly recalls a drunken evening spent with Hipgrave and the other members of Toploader, which ended with all of them playing with her collection of children's toys - not very rock 'n' roll. She also makes no attempt to hide her love of children's programmes, such as The Muppet Show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her eyes light up when she recalls meeting Anthony Head (who plays Giles in Buffy) at a charity event in London. 'I turned around and bumped into him. I phoned Dan immediately and yelled, "Anthony Head's here". And he said: "Be calm, just be calm." I persuaded Dan to come along and meet him. My husband is not a big Buffy fan, but I love the show. My ideal job is to be on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'

Fierce ambition characterised Gail from day one. Born in 1971, she instinctively knew that she would become famous. Show business doesn't run in the family Despite their divorce, her parents, Sandra and Craig, continue to work in the family's construction business, and Keith, 27, helps children with learning disabilities.

Nevertheless, Gail was undeterred. After a stint as a lowly runner with an independent TV company, she persuaded a colleague to film her interviewing random passers by on the streets of Edinburgh, then sent the resulting tape to 'every TV company I could think of' and secured her first presenting role shortly afterwards.

She launched her career with Fully Booked, a BBC2 magazine show, and subsequently made her name as a children's TV presenter. Determined to ensure she didn't remain stuck in the genre, Gail quit, posed for some lads' magazines and witnessed her naked image being projected on to the Houses of Parliament (an incident that propelled her into the limelight). She then cut short her long blonde locks and remodelled herself as a serious presenter on an eclectic array of shows, including Top of the Pops, Wish You Were Here?, Masters of Combat, BBC2's martial arts extravaganza, and ITV's Pulling Power, a show about fast cars.

Gail is determined to leave her past behind. 'I will never pose nude again, not because married but because I've been there and done that.' Having set up Heroine, an independent company, with her friend Charlotte Wheeler year, Gail intends to move into comedy writing. 'I've almost finished my first sketch. I read it a declared, "I'm hilarious".'

She intends to act in her sketches. She talks about doing more radio, having just finished a stint filling in on The Fred MacAulay Show BBC Radio Scotland's breakfast offering. Lack of self-belief is not one of Gail's trademarks. That said, she does show flashes of modesty. Music is clearly her passion and as one of the presenters on Top of the Pops, she is humble about her skills compared with those of the acts who perform. 'Dan, for example: he has some serious talent. I just talk a lot.' Does she have musical ambitions? 'Dan bought me an acoustic guitar and I'm trying to learn how to play it. Every time he sits down to teach me, he just sits strumming things himself. And I end up sit there, thinking, "Well, that's not exactly a lesson",' she jokes.

Gail's idols share a musical aptitude and respect is genuine. Unusually, in these celebrity-obsessed times, she has no desire to meet them face-to face: 'I would hate to meet the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. I like the band. I like the music and that's enough for me. I don't want know any more, thank you very much.'

In fact, the one time Gail was asked to conduct an impromptu interview with David Bowie - one of her idols - things went badly wrong. 'It was the worst interview I have ever done. I was backstage at this charity concert at Wembley and suddenly in walked David Bowie. I've never been so gobsmacked to see anyone in my life. He had this amazing gazelle-like woman [his wife, Iman] standing beside him, who looked perfect. I had never seen anyone so perfect. He sat down and said, "What's the interview about?", and my head was spinning. I asked him three times whether he was all right. I was totally star-struck and just fell apart. I called my mum and she said, I saw it and you were fine". When my mum says, "It's fine", you know you were awful,'Gail laughs.

Interestingly, it is only musicians who arouse this kind of awed response from Gail. When she interviewed Robert De Niro, she felt differently. 'Afterwards, I thought, "He's a bit grumpy and not the best conversationalist I've ever met". I was fairly disappointed.'

She is even less complimentary about the musically minded wannabes who appear on Pop Idols. 'The youngsters might have passion but I wouldn't sit down and listen to them. I'm too well aware that there's someone behind them, orchestrating everything and making lots of money.'

Similarly, she's never really admired the Spice Girls. When I met them, a couple were nice enough and the others weren't. Emma Bunton is adorable, she has time for everyone. Mel C's my favourite because she can sing. But the "girl power" phenomenon and Geri were too full on.'

Gail is a strange mix of the fiercely pragmatic and determined adult and the childlike innocent. But despite her transformation into the sensible married woman, friends are less likely to find her slaving away at the housework. 'I'm calming down. If someone puts down a cup, I don't wipe underneath it and clear it away before they've finished their coffee because they've left a mark on my table.'The mature, slightly more relaxed, Gail has arrived.

Gail is presenting 'Tbe Clothes Show', at Birmingham NEC from December 7 to 13. Details on 0870 902 0555, or visit www.clotheshow2001.com.