The reality of TV makeovers

Lowri Turner's first novel spills the beans on the world of TV. But it's all fiction - honest! - the presenter tells Gill Swain

Every journalist is supposed to harbour a novel somewhere inside, and when the fashion journalist and TV presenter Lowri Turner decided to delve into her literary soul and disgorge hers, she didn't have to search deeply for a theme. Best known as the presenter of BBC1's makeover programme DIY SOS, she set her first work of fiction behind the scenes of a DIY makeover programme called On the House.

The novel, Stripped Bare, tantalises the reader into imagining that many of prime-time TV's darkest back-room secrets will be exposed, and there's certainly a lot of fun to be had from spotting Turner's references. Some are obvious, such as changing the name of Big Brother to Big Sister and Through the Keyhole to The Other Side of the Letter Box. There is a foppish presenter named Liam Smith, whom Turner describes as "nothing more than a jumped-up painter and decorator" and adorns with a Mohican haircut dyed orange to match his jacket and trousers; he is obviously based on the flamboyant Changing Rooms designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

But the dreaded libel laws mean that Turner's bitchier portraits of egomaniac female presenters and killer producers had to be disguised. "When I produced the first draft," she says, "the lawyers went ballistic, saying things like: 'Oh my God, that's not Carol Vorderman, is it?' Some of the characters had to come out altogether if there was no way to disguise them.

"The trick is to disguise people enough so you don't get sued but not so much that the readers can't work out who they are. I took elements of one person and amalgamated them with elements of another. Although I am bound to say that it is all fictional and none of the incidents ever happened."

Turner was fashion editor of the London Evening Standard at 24, then a columnist on The Sun then the Sunday Mirror before moving to GMTV as fashion correspondent in 1993 and on to Good Morning with Anne and Nick the following year. In 1999, she began presenting DIY SOS, in which she travels the country with a team of professionals, rescuing householders from their DIY disasters; she is now filming her seventh series.

She says that no one has phoned her in a rage after recognising themselves in the book. "I was fairly sure it would be all right and, if it does happen, I will deny all. I find that people you do base things on never spot themselves anyway.

"I hope, if anyone does recognise themselves, they will take it in good part. I once wrote an unpleasant piece about someone and felt horribly embarrassed the next time I met her. But she kissed me on both cheeks and cried: 'How lovely to see you!' I felt so guilty, I vowed I would never do it again."

Turner reveals a few tricks of the trade, such as that all female presenters over the age of 20 insist on being filmed from above and always walking upstairs; never down. "Otherwise you look like Vanessa Feltz before the diet."

The book is, in fact, more grown-up chick-lit than TV revelation, featuring women nearing 40 with names such as Anastassia, Saffron and Olivia, and describing their children-job juggling acts and relationships with inadequate men. Again, Turner didn't have to look too far for inspiration, as she is 38, juggles writing, TV presenting and radio appearances with looking after her two sons, and dumped her spouse, Paul Connew, a newspaper executive turned househusband, when she was pregnant with their second child.

In fact, if anyone felt like suing after reading Stripped Bare, it might be Connew, since there is also a househusband character in the book, called Colin. He starts off as a boring wimp who has lost interest in sex with his wife and later turns out to be having an affair with the health visitor, Nigel. But, as Turner states emphatically on the flyleaf: "Any similarity between a fictional character and a living person is strictly coincidental."

Stripped Bare' is published by Headline at £12