Lorraine Kelly has told how she didn’t write any sex in her first novel, because her mother would read it.
The daytime TV host dedicated The Island Swimmer to her mother Anne, who taught her to read and write before she reached primary school age.
The novel, set on Orkney, has become an instant bestseller.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Friday night, she said the book contained swearing, but no sex.
She said: “There’s a few Fs. I didn’t put any sex in it though because I thought my mother’s going to read it and nobody does sex very well really. You don’t need to know – we know.”
Lorraine, 64, admitted she herself was a “potty mouth” and has to be careful when presenting TV in case an inappropriate word slips out.
She said: “I have to be very careful on live television because I’m getting to the stage now where I actually am saying things and I think ‘god, I’ve said that out loud, I’ll need to really watch’.
“I have to watch what I say, but then everybody swears. You shouldn’t use it just like an adjective but when you have to emphasise something there’s nothing like a good ‘feck’.
“Sometimes I was like oh my mum wouldn’t like that.”
Lorraine, interviewed by Sir Ian Rankin, told how she set her book on Orkney after falling in love with the islands nearly 40 years ago. She first visited in 1985 while working as TV-am’s Scottish correspondent and has returned every year since.
She said it was always her idea to write a story set on Orkney but admitted writing the novel was “the hardest thing” she has done.
She said: “I’ve always wanted to write but never thought I would get the opportunity. I had the idea for so long and when I wrote out a rough draft I was just so lucky that it was taken up and that I was able to do it.
“I had to be a little bit selfish because I had to say no to a lot of things to get the time and the concentration to do it properly.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, by a mile.”
She added: “I found it really difficult but I really loved it. Even when I was tearing my hair out, even when they (her characters) were driving me crazy and keeping me awake at night, I still loved it.”
