The question mark over Dale Winton's sexuality has always been treated with wry amusement by the genial TV host of such shows as Supermarket Sweep, Pets Win Prizes and The National Lottery.

Until now, that is. He has finally come out to tell the world that he is gay and while marriage isn't on the cards, he would love a long-term relationship.

But he is nothing if not a tease, saying that he is open-minded about the issue. "I had a girlfriend before I had a boyfriend. There's been an ambiguity about it. And I never say never, and I never plan anything.

He admits that he has a tendency to fall for the wrong types of guys and that the two serious relationships he has had in recent years have been disastrous.

His parents divorced when he was ten and after that his mother drifted in and out of a string of relationships.

She suffered bouts of severe depression and, after numerous attempts, committed suicide at home, taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Winton, who was 21 at the time, found her.

"I stood there crying hysterically, feeling instantly ill and sick at the same time," he says in his autobiography, Dale: My Story.

"To this day that void is never filled," he says of her death.

He finally got the TV break he needed when he was nearing 40, after begging the producers of Supermarket Sweep to give him the job of host - but remains ever anxious that age is not on his side.

"You don't want to let yourself go and the public don't want to see someone let themselves go.

"I'm 47 years old and I'm aware that there are younger people coming up and I'm aware that there are also people like Bruce (Forsyth) and Bob (Monkhouse) who have been there for years and they still look smart and try to keep it together - and I'm one of those.

"I want to still be working, which is why I had a facelift." He went to a clinic in Switzerland for the surgery two years ago.

"I'd been working solidly and was on TV every week and looked in the mirror and thought I didn't look so good.

"I had a terrible double chin and my eyes were baggy. I was constantly aware of keeping the cameras up and lighting me from underneath. Photoshoots were never before three in the afternoon. I looked bloated and dreadful.

"Most men who look rugged look a bit sexy, but I looked like an Italian housewife. I'm aware of my shortcomings and my face needed doing."

Well, that's showbiz.

Dale: My Story, by Dale Winton, is published by Century, price £16.99, available now