: Carol Vorderman was determined to bring the kind of professionalism to her final Countdown show that she had brought to the previous 4754 Countdowns she had filmed.
She knew it was going to be an emotional experience after 26 years as co-host of Channel 4's cosy words and letters game but - gutsy woman that she is - she was going to see it through.
What she hadn't accounted for was the Whiteley factor, the inevitable reminders, during the recording of her final programme in Leeds last month which will be shown this Friday, of her great friend and mentor Richard Whiteley, presenter of Countdown from its inception in 1982 through to his untimely death in 2005.
"I had been pretty much okay until they started to show clips of Richard," Carol says. "But suddenly he was there on the screen as the first face to be seen on Channel 4 when the channel began in 1982 and then kicking off the output with the first edition of Countdown.
"And then they showed the inevitable bloopers there had been over the years from the many programmes in which we had both taken part.
"They had been hilarious at the time - side-splitting, as so much of what Richard said and did was - but now just terribly sad.
"And suddenly I could feel myself going. However determined I might have been to 'hold it together' the tears inevitably flowed when I saw my great friend Richard up there on screen."
Carol, who will celebrate her 48th birthday on Christmas Eve, has always been very careful not t Read full story at www.dailyrecord.co.uk