Cherie to publish autobiography

The memoirs, which will be eagerly anticipated around Westminster, will be published in October 2008, publisher Little, Brown has announced.

They promise a "warm, intimate and often very funny portrait of a family living in extraordinary circumstances".

During 10 years in Downing Street Mrs Blair, who continued her high-flying legal career, was a high profile media figure in her own right.

Her autobiography will chart the story of her life from a childhood in working class Liverpool in the 1960s, to becoming a QC specialising in human rights law and then as wife of the British prime minister.

"So much has happened - things that my grandma could never have dreamt of - that it feels wrong somehow just to let it pass as if the journey had no meaning"
Cherie Blair

The publishers claim it "has been an astonishing journey for a woman whose unconventional childhood was full of drama, and who grew up with a fierce sense of justice".

Mother-of-four Mrs Blair says: "I feel so privileged to have travelled so far.

"So much has happened - things that my grandma could never have dreamt of - that it feels wrong somehow just to let it pass as if the journey had no meaning."

Over her years as the prime minister's wife, Mrs Blair has been in the headlines almost as much as her husband, and not always for the reasons she would have liked.

Mr Blair was the first prime minister to bring a young family into 10 Downing Street and Mrs Blair was the first prime minister's wife to have such a high-flying career.

Embarrassment

She gave birth to her fourth child, Leo, during her time at Number 10.

But her relationship with the media was not a smooth one - especially over her involvement, in a property deal, with convicted fraudster Peter Foster.

Mrs Blair was forced to apologise for the embarrassment she caused in buying two flats in Bristol with the Australian conman, a boyfriend of her fitness guru Carole Caplin.

In a tearful address, she said she was "not superwoman" and would never have done anything to harm her husband, the prime minister.

She also came under fire on a number of occasions over fees for her speaking tours and is widely reported to not get on with Gordon Brown.

Indeed, accusations that she had accused Mr Brown of lying during the Labour conference last year led to Mr Blair joking that he did not have to worry about his wife "running off with the man next door".

Her autobiography will also give her the chance to put her side of the story in the wake of the accounts of life in Number 10 in her husband's ex-spin chief Alastair Campbell's recent diaries.