Port Glasgow<\/a> and Jean speaks passionately about her childhood in the town.\n<\/p>\n\n Jean, from Devol, said: “I am so proud of my Port Glasgow roots. I love the town.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen I go to the Port Tesco’s everyone stops me to ask after my mum.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Growing up in a working-class community in the 1980s, everyone looked after one another.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe used to go out, everyone wanted to play together. It stays with you.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere were no divisions, everyone was treated the same.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was such a safe place to be a child.”\n<\/p>\n
\n ![\"Jean]()
(Image: contributed)\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite her happy upbringing, Jean’s close-knit family were touched by tragedy when her older brother Robert died aged 16 in 1991 from a heart condition.\n<\/p>\n
\n The TV presenter suffered another blow when her dad John died aged 79 three years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n Throughout her career, Jean has dedicated much of her time to helping local good causes, including the Ardgowan Hospice which she has supported for the last 10 years.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: “My family have always been big supporters of the Ardgowan Hospice.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think when you lose someone you realise how important they are. We all know people who have been supported by the hospice.”\n<\/p>\n
\n In recent years Jean has been a patron of Home Start Inverclyde which provides lifeline service to families with young children who are struggling.\n<\/p>\n
\n She has helped them raise tens of thousands of pounds at their charity hoolies by hosting the events.\n<\/p>\n
\n Jean is keen to take a hands-on role in supporting the charity by visiting and talking to local families and recently helped celebrate Home Start\u2019s team of volunteers.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: “They provide the most incredible support, there are people out there who just don’t have that kind of help.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI am very proud of what Home Start Inverclyde has achieved.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The presenter recently nominated them as her chosen charity while taking part in the game show Bridge of Lies, hosted by Ross Kemp.\n<\/p>\n
\n Jean is also a Celebrity Mastermind champion, having chosen Australian singer Kylie as her specialist subject.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her appearance on the programme raised funds for charity Cardiac Risk in the Young in memory of her brother.\n<\/p>\n
\n But despite her achievements, the broadcaster says that she still has big ambitions in the world of television.\n<\/p>\n
\n She added: “I think the dream would be a slot on prime-time Saturday night shows.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Jean says she is always keen to encourage young people and hopes her success can show them that hard work can pay off.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: “I am a girl from Port Glasgow and if I can do it, they can as well.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf they work hard, they can follow their dreams.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The popular TV star, who is busy filming in Corfu this week, has travelled across the globe fronting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-650449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}