GLORIA HUNNIFORD walks into London's Berkeley Hotel wearing a pink jacket, pink boots, a dramatic pink velvet shawl and every head turns. At 62 she looks radiant with her stunning legs and immaculate spiky blonde hair which never moves.

'I'm just thrown together,' says the highly organised professional who would paint on a megawatt smile whatever private problems she might be having.

She's much tougher than she looks because you don't remain a successful showbusiness personality for over 40 years without a core of steel. Her life often appears golden but there has been sadness and trauma.

'It doesn't matter who you are or what age you are,' she says. 'Everybody gets dealt the bad cards sometimes. You just have to deal with them and go on.

'When I was very young if I had boyfriend trouble or my best friend wouldn't speak to me my mother would say, "Can you mend it, can you apologise, can you do anything about it? If you can then do it, don't leave any stone unturned. If you can't, then let it go because otherwise it will make you bitter.'' And I still use that philosophy today.' Her mother was wise but it's a philosophy which needs the powerful self discipline which is at the core of Gloria's character.

She was born in the front bedroom of a small terrace house in Portadown, Northern Ireland. In fact her sister still lives only a mile away from the home where they grew up.

Her strict father worked in newspaper advertising and was also an amateur magician. Gloria used to go to concerts with him, was singing on stage from the age of eight and she's been working ever since.

She married cameraman Don Keating and in 1982 came to London to Radio 2 to stand in for Jimmy Young. She was ambitious with the work ethic she inherited from her father, but Don preferred to remain in Ireland and their marriage fell apart. Two years later they separated and they divorced in 1992.

Their three children Caron, 39, Paul, 38, and Michael, 32, stayed in England with Gloria though they remained close to their father. Caron followed her mother into television, married her manager Russ Lindsay and then, when her second baby was due, her beloved father died suddenly at 62 of a heart attack.

'She was really too late on in the pregnancy to fly,' says Gloria, 'which is why she hadn't been to Northern Ireland in previous weeks. But when Don died she just got on a plane and went over. She then flew back to England, had the baby induced so she wouldn't miss the funeral and went back to Ireland within five days.

'I'll never forget watching her in the church going down the aisle carrying this tiny baby. That was a bad period, a very rough time. It took her some time to come to terms with all of that. You always want the quick fix for your children. When they're small and they hurt themselves you're so used to saying: "There, there, I'll kiss it better.'' 'But when your children are older and they are faced with grief it's very hard. Your natural instinct as a parent is to take on their pain, take away their hurt. But unfortunately it gets to the stage where you can't and that's a hard lesson to learn.

'You can only be there for them and pray and listen when they want to talk. You find that everybody grieves at a different pace, has different thoughts. You think you're in control as a mother but there comes a time when you have to let go. You need to stand back and wait to be asked.

'Don didn't marry again but he had a partner and wowgoldone.com they had a son who is now 12. He's a nice boy, and he keeps in touch with the children. I met him of course at the funeral and he was a very sad lad. Don's death was terrible because it was so fast, so sudden.' The toll of her father's death on Caron's emotional and physical health was overwhelming and perhaps inevitably she suffered from depression.

She and her manager-husband Russ sought peace in Cornwall with their two sons Charlie, nine, and Gabriel, six, and bought a large house in Fowey overlooking the sea. They then decided to move to Australia for the sun.

Gloria and her second husband Stephen have just spent four weeks holiday with them and she cried most of the way home.

'I just wanted to bundle the four of them up,' she says 'and put them on the plane but we're a family of criers. We were never very good at farewells.

When I used to go from Belfast to visit my mum in Portadown she'd cry every time I left.

'Irish families are like Italian families, we want to be close with all the generations mingled, which I think is the best way to live. I tell myself they're just a day away and we talk all the time. Russ is a delight. I couldn't love him more if he were my own son. He looks after Caron and the family so well.' AFEW years ago, Gloria fell heavily during a tennis match and broke her shoulder in 15 places. It took several operations and four painful years to finally heal and she still has restricted movement. However she barely stopped working, her public smile stayed in place and she had shoulder slings made to match her outfits.

She was plagued by a stalker and one crazy fan managed to intercept her mail. Last year her younger son Michael, who is a publisher, crashed his moped into two cars. He abandoned the moped and went home. However he was observed by three witnesses and was found by police lying on his bed three times over the legal drinkdrive limit.

'He lost his licence but I didn't hear about it until it was almost in court. I was most angry about not knowing but he didn't want to worry me. He thought he could just go to court and get his licence taken off him.

'Then he had all the publicity which if he'd been anybody else he wouldn't have had. I'm not condoning what he did in any shape or form and he was very regretful but it was a moped, for goodness sake. He's actually very good at leaving the car and taking taxis. Just once, because he was on a moped, he took a chance.' After her divorce there were various lovers in Gloria's life but she was alone when she met businessman and hairdresser Stephen Way at the first night party of the musical Hair and it was a coup de foudre.

He's a strong and lovely man who is also gentle, kind and funny. He has a hair and beauty salon in London's Bond Street and it now seems impossible to imagine him and Gloria apart.

'At my age,' he told me once, 'I fell head over heels in love. I've found a woman with beauty, brains and a soul. I'd like to build a brick wall around her and keep her safe.' At the end of that initial evening he said to Gloria: 'Can I give you a call?' and called next day. A year later, during a holiday in Dublin, they became lovers.

'There was nothing sexual for a year. I always I knew I fancied him but I wasn't really looking for a sexual relationship and certainly not marriage.

We were just friends and he kept saying: "When are we going to get it together?'' Then I was working in Dublin, Stephen came over and it happened.

It wasn't planned, I wasn't waiting in the Janet Reger underwear.' Ultimately he moved into her large house in Sevenoaks, Kent. He divorced his wife Audrey after 36 years and proposed to Gloria in a Caribbean swimming pool.

They married in St Peter's church in Hever, Kent, in September 1998, had their reception at Hever castle and spent their honeymoon in Italy. A horse-drawn carriage took the bride to church, James Galway played Danny Boy and Cliff Richard read the lesson.

THE congregation was filled with their five children including Stephen's two sons, Dominic and Matthew, and seven joint grandchildren. Their eighth grandchild Beau, who is the second son of Gloria's son Paul and his partner Sandy, was born the night before the wedding. 'So he was the best present of all. We got up at 6 in the morning and went to see him.

'We fought long and hard to get married in church, it was very important to us. Don had died by that time so it wasn't too difficult for me but it was different with Stephen. We then found a vicar who had himself been divorced and he said: "Why is it so important to you to get married in church?'' 'We said, "It's important for us as individuals but also to say to our family: This isn't a passing fancy, it's a very serious thing we're doing.'' 'We wanted to be married in front of God and our children. When I got to the door of the church I couldn't wait to get up the aisle towards Stephen. Somebody said the night before, "Have you any last-minute qualms?" I said "absolutely none."

'I just felt very fortunate that we'd found each other at that time in our lives. My two sons gave me away. They walked me up the aisle with broad smiles. Stephen's two sons were his best-men and Caron was my maiden of honour.

'All the children bar the new baby obviously were page boys or flower girls. I never expected or wanted to get married again. I felt as if I'd done that, had my children and grandchildren. I felt quite fulfilled so I wasn't on the outlook for another husband but I feel as though I've known him for ever.

'If I'm under stress he'll do everything to make my life smoother whether it's cooking a meal or whatever and I do the same for him. Stephen has a theory that the person in most need at a particular time has to have priority.

'Also isn't it bliss that I married a man who's got 25 hairdressers working for him? I landed in heaven, really. Apart from loving him I feel very comfortable with him. He doesn't irritate me. If there's anything wrong I can't harbour it because it sits like a lump in my throat. If I have disagreements with anybody I don't want to sulk about it or forget it or let it fester. I want to talk about it and sort things out.' Gloria's loving, strict, secure childhood is the basis for her directness and formidable will.

If she can't sleep she gets up and works. She went through the menopause without any symptoms and she never suffers from jet lag.

'I don't subscribe to jet lag, I think that's in the head. I just make up my mind that I'm not going to get it.' Certainly her focused determination helped her cope when her father became ill. 'He had a very serious stroke eight years before he died. Strokes change people and really the man I knew died at that point. He was a different person, very demanding.

'My mother became his carer and she had to cope with a lot. If my father's mind wasn't clicking into gear fast enough and he couldn't think of the right word then he'd get angry. And if my mother didn't put his dinner on the table at exactly six o clock he'd become very agitated.

'In those days Irish husbands ruled the home, their word was law but - in her quiet all embracing way - she was the strong one.' They were difficult times but after his death when the grief had eased, Gloria's mother had some happy years. She often came over to England and her famous daughter was able to spoil her.

Sadly she died before she was able to meet Stephen. 'I say to him: "You'd have loved my mum." ' Gloria and Stephen are devotedly happy together but there have been dark days. Nine months after the wedding, Stephen had a heart attack which was a salutary warning to take nothing for granted. 'He was the last person-in the world I would have expected to have one. He's a very physically strong man but his brother George who had seemed in the peak of health died very suddenly two weeks before from a heartrelated illness.

'Stephen loved George a lot and admired him and I believe the shock and emotion may have triggered Stephen's attack. And a year before his sister, who virtually brought him up after his mother's death, also died.

'A lot of doctors feel that emotional shock can have a great knock-on effect. But it was a very good waking up signal and I now keep a very tight eye on him. I can see when he's tired and I'll say: "Just sit down for a while."' Gloria has just judged the lifestyle and leisure section in the WH Smith Book Awards. Next Tuesday she will present the prize to the winner at the Warner Village Cinema in London's Leicester Square.

Having read the diverse books she said to Stephen: 'Whether you want a medical diagnosis, a plug changed or your garden dug I can now do it.' SHE'S also doing a totally revamped version of her television chat show Open House in glamorous locations around the world. She will be meeting photographer Lord Lichfield at his ancestral home Shugborough Hall and talking to Cliff Richard at his house in Barbados.

They've been close friends for 30 years since she interviewed Cliff on radio in Northern Ireland.

'I was heavily pregnant with Michael at the time. I literally waddled in and was introduced to him as Ms Hunniford. I was mortified and kept thinking: "I do hope he doesn't assume I'm an unmarried mother."

'He's a lovely, straightforward man, very focused. He came and stayed with us at Caron's house in Australia for a night and we had so much fun. The next day it was hot and he was just in shorts, T-shirt and a pair of trainers.

'Then we drove him to Brisbane for a concert and there he was on stage in a white suit and black shirt with 8,000 people screaming. And you think: "Is this the same person?"

'We always said we'd go and have Botox together but then he went off and had it without me.' I ask Gloria if she and Stephen ever talk about how they would manage if anything happened to the other and she says passionately: 'Never. I don't go down that road.

'I know it's going to happen and I'm not naive but living in Northern Ireland where innocent lives can be wiped out in an instant was a great lesson to me.

'I just try to be focused on today and maybe tomorrow but not much further than that.'

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