Tess stars as TV's Miss Sunshine

Tess has developed a close working relationship with Bruce Forsyth

Tess Daly credits her parents with instilling her with the discipline and strong work ethic to make her one of the country's top television presenters.

Growing up in Birch Vale, a small village near New Mills, dad Vivian and mum Sylvia worked long hours at a textile factory to make sure their children were clothed and fed.

Tess now calls on those values herself as she balances life as a new mother with one of the most high profile presenting jobs in television.

She's presented Strictly Come Dancing since its first series in 2003 and has built up a close working relationship with Bruce Forsyth who's labelled her 'Miss Sunshine'.

An early presenting job with Lisa Snowdon, Coolio and Jayne Middlemiss

It's a new high in a 20-year career which began when a talent scout approached her in Manchester at the same time as she was studying for her A-Levels and offered her modelling work - a job which took her mum and dad some getting used to.

She told the Daily Mirror: "My parents were not happy. Modelling meant nothing to dad - he thought I ought to get a good, safe job in a bank.

"I had to fight my corner to get them to agree to me giving it a go."

As well as working on assignments around the world, Tess also appeared in two videos for Duran Duran and more famously, the 'naked' video for The Beloved's 1993 hit 'Sweet Harmony'.

Her big break in television came in 1999 when she presented the 'Find Me a Model' competition on Channel Four's The Big Breakfast.

Posing with members of the public at the opening of Westfield Derby in 2007

She went on to work on shows including Singled Out, SMTV Live, Make Me a Supermodel and the short-lived reality duet programme Just The Two of Us.

Now she's familiar to millions as the Ying to Brucie's Yang on both Strictly Come Dancing and BBC Children in Need, where she recently beat him in a charity dance-off.

At the same time as developing her burgeoning television career, she's also found time to marry fellow presenter Vernon Kay and the pair have two daughters - Phoebe, born in October 2004 and Amber, born in May 2009.

In 2006, the pair were voted the nation's favourite celebrity couple but Tess said it's a tag she's never taken too seriously.

She said: "We're not about being a celebrity couple. The most important thing to us is our relationship and our family.

"Vernon is an honourable, old-fashioned man - just like my dad was."

Tess's career hit a new high in October 2007 when she was invited to cut the ribbon at the opening of Derby's new Westfield Centre.

She seemed quite at ease chatting to the public who'd turned out to see her and posing for photographs with them - perhaps not surprising for someone who's always been determined to maintain the morals and values given to her in those humble days back in Birch Vale.