Yahoo News Gloria Hunniford was on an IRA 'death list'
At the height of her fame Gloria Hunniford was placed on the IRA’s hit list.
The Northern Irish TV star has disclosed that she was given protection by the Army and trained in how to search for bombs planted on her car after she was made a high profile target of the Irish terrorist group.
Gloria, 77, has released a candid new autobiography, My Life, in which she has opened up about being “stunned” when she was told the horrific news by an army brigadier, while filming for her TV show Ulster Calling in Germany.
She revealed to The Mirror: “He told us we had both been put on an IRA death list. I was stunned. We just sat there staring blankly at each other.
“Then the brigadier said: ‘We quite understand if you want to stop doing the programme – we don’t want you to be in danger.’
“I’d got three young kids who needed both their parents. But we’d been doing the programme for the British Forces Broadcasting Service since 1969 and any ‘damage’ had already been done.
“So we both shrugged and said ‘What’s the point in stopping now?’
“It was still shocking to hear your name was on a terrorist hit list, but I was determined to carry on. If you let the fear get to you, life would close down. You can’t let terrorists win.”
Years later, the BBC received threats by bombers who tried to get her fired from her job at Radio 2 after bombs ripped through Hyde Park and Regent’s Park in London in 1982.
Somebody called the BBC studio and said: “Get that Irish b**** off air or we will.”
She revealed: “I had to be smuggled out of by a back door and taken home by car. I was very shaken up as I’d only recently moved to London. From then on I was allowed to drive right up to the back of the building and park out of sight.”
Gloria was awarded an OBE this year, and she is “humbled” to receive the title after spending 70 years in the showbusiness sphere, which has seen her journey from a singer, to a broadcaster, a magician and a ‘Loose Women’ co-host, whilst offering her services to cancer charities.
She also revealed that she shared a stalker with Princess Margaret and Margaret Thatcher, adding: “My stalker had been charged a few years earlier with sending a hoax letter bomb threat to Margaret Thatcher, as well as harassing Princess Margaret and the Director-General of the BBC.
“He was undergoing treatment for mental illness.”
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