Anne Hegerty

I don't know where I'd be without 'The Chase', it changed my life.

My father claimed I could read before I went to school. I sucked up knowledge and read the Children's Britannica Encyclopaedia from cover to cover when I was eight.

Back then, people thought if you could talk you didn't have autism. I was just seen as this slightly odd child. I saw another therapist aged 12, and another in my early 30s.

It's taken me a long time to work out what people are thinking and what they're expecting. I am naturally solitary, and I'm comfortable with that.

As an adult I've developed better social skills; I know how to do a conversation, I know how to do a party. I find them wearying, though, and I like that in lockdown no one expects me to go to them.

When you've grown up always knowing that there's something that seemed to be different about you from most people - and not being able to understand until my mid-forties that what we were talking about here was autism - I've had to learn an awful let about myself and what I can and can't do and what I can or can't cope with.

Just by chance, I happened to meet someone who told me there was a high level quizzing circuit.

I got on the quizzing circuit, that's how I heard about the existence of 'The Chase'.

On New Year's Day 2008 I had two bailiffs turn up on my doorstep and because I had so little income I had not been paying bills, and I respect the concept of paying bills, I'm very much in favour of it, I just couldn't quite get it together.

I am pretty sedentary and I spend most of my time sitting on my bum reading things on the internet! It will do me good to have to exercise a little bit more.

I was the world's worst Brownie and Girl Guide and I never did camping.

I sort of managed to establish in my life that relationships aren't really a thing I can handle.

I was a pretty good academic proofreader, I just wasn't good at keeping up with the paperwork.

I would take vouchers, do sums in my head just to get some eggs and bread or a tin of cheap Irish stew. I'd be starving and want two tins but couldn't afford it. The poorer you are the hungrier you feel.

I was struggling, I was hungry, I was a freelance copy editor but had very little work.

I had to go to Asda, it's the best supermarket if you're poor as they have a good basic range, Sainsbury's is for rich, posh people.

I didn't set out to be liked - everyone's supposed to be terrified of me. I'm surprised by the amount of viewers who want the Chaser to win!

I still get attracted to people but having a relationship isn't fair on the other person.

It took years of psychotherapy before I even considered dating. I lost weight, replaced my glasses with contact lenses and felt a lot more confident. But I find it really hard to hold down a relationship.

Any group that can be livened up by Mensa must be pretty much dead!

My filthy little secret is that I've always wanted to be famous and I don't get nervous being on TV.

For a long time I wasn't allowed to be anything but 'The Governess' when I went on TV, even if I went on a talk show I had to be in costume. I mean guys, I own clothes!

Never say never, I find I get claustrophobic in a relationship.