AT THE start she was viewed as being the posh bird who hung out with royalty and wore perma-make-up.

But by the end of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here, we were all admiring her British stiff upper lip as she gobbled down a witchetty grub as if it were a bar of chocolate.

Jennie Bond first hit our screens when she became the BBC Royal Correspondent in 1989. In that time she accompanied members of the Royal Family on some unforgettable overseas tours.

She travelled extensively with Diana, Princess of Wales, most memorably on her last campaigning trip to Angola, when she focused world attention on the issue of landmines.

Jennie got to know the princess well and describes her as 'being charming, articulate, fresh, interesting yet manipulative'.

Her toughest assignment came when she had to cover the breaking news story of the fatal car accident and the princess's funeral in 1997.

But Jennie is probably mostly recognised for her very 'prim and proper' presence on the telly.

"Everyone thinks that I am straight-laced and rather prim and I ain't," said Jennie, 53.

"I don't know why I have this strange image, which isn't a part of me.

"I regret not once or twice kicking my legs out from behind the desk and doing a dance!"

Jennie joined the BBC in 1977 as a sub-editor in radio news. She also worked as a producer on Woman's Hour, Tuesday Cal, International Assignment and on TV documentaries.

But it was not her 12 years as Royal Correspondent for the BBC that has made her a true household name, but rather her appearance on ITV's I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, alongside other household names like Jordan and Johnny Rotten.

"That really was the real me you were seeing on the telly," she said.

"Doing I'm A Celebrity... was like escaping from this vision people had of me.

"I know that when you're on the news you're not there to be a celebrity, but a conduit of information.

"But I am light-hearted, and I am gutsy and I do swear like a trooper.

"I always felt that doing the news was, for me, like a straitjacket I couldn't quite shake off.

"So I wanted to make a move into light entertainment as I am light-hearted, you know. It's just a shame that this side of me never seemed to be captured on camera."

More than 15 million viewers tuned in to watch her complete her worst 'Bushtucker Trial' (a challenge in a bid to win food for the camp), which involved eating a stick insect, a grub and a giant fish eye.

And her no-nonsense approach to the tasks, her support of the other contestants and her stiff upper lip stance in the face of whispered criticisms from Lord Brocket, saw her reach the final of the show. She was eventually beaten by Kerry McFadden to the title Queen of the Jungle.

Early on in the show, Jennie figured out the secret to winning the Bushtucker Trials was putting mind over matter.

In one instance she was 'buried alive' in a casket full of rats and rising water.

But she hummed loudly so she could not hear the earth being showered on her 'coffin', and closed her eyes so she could not see the light flashes or the glimpses of the rats.

As she stepped out with rats still crawling on her, Jennie asked: "Is my mascara still on?"

And from then on we were hooked.

"I liked to succeed and after I came out of that coffin I was elated," she recalls.

"It was all delightful fun to be honest and I was happy to do whatever they threw at us.

"I was asked to do the programme the year before, but I was still working for the BBC then and couldn't do it.

"But this time when they asked me I thought, why not?

"Saying that, mind you, my husband Jim didn't want me to do it but my daughter Emma had the casting vote and she thought it would be really cool."

Despite the fun, there were, however, some people she didn't feel so comfortable with.

"I was closest to Diane (Modahl), and Kerry was my little kitten and I'm sorry that I don't get to see her more as she lives in Ireland.

"Alex (Best) was great and Razor (Neil Ruddock) was fabulous. To be honest I liked them all. "Well, I don't know if you could say that I liked Lord Brocket.

"I can't believe some of the stuff he was saying in there about me.

"He was really trying to stir things up. But he has been on his knees and begged forgiveness from me, both on screen and off.

"And I have accepted. Besides, we could be making a television programme with each other which would be sort of fun.

"Most of us had a reunion dinner the other day at Gary Rhodes' place in London.

"I'd just come from scrubbing the kitchen floor as it was the day we were moving from London to Devon.

"But I still had my lippy on, thank goodness."

Asked what she thinks of the Royal Family, now she just says, "They just stagger from one crisis to another."

Jennie is now enjoying picking and choosing which jobs she takes, who she talks to, and what colour lipstick to wear on camera.

She says she's more content than ever before and is enjoying telling people what it was like reporting on the world's most dysfunctional family.

In her one-woman show that is coming to the Point Theatre at Eastleigh, Confessions of a Royal Reporter, she does just that, using colourful anecdotes and out-takes.

"There's lots of laughter and people can ask me what I think about Charles and Camilla and stuff like that," she says.

"But I suppose they'll also want to know what a fish eyeball tastes like."

Although she's keeping quiet about the type of offers that have flooded into her office since stepping out of the jungle, Jennie is currently relishing spending time with her family and choosing which offers to accept.

"Family is everything to me. They all watched me on I'm A Celebrity... and I know that Emma was hooked and very proud of me," she smiles.

"She said the best moment of her year was me coming second.

"And she left a message on my mobile telling me that although I was runner-up, I would always be her queen."

Jennie Bond will be appearing at The Point in Eastleigh on Friday, April 23 at 7.45pm. To book tickets call 023 8065 2333