After Dinner Speakers: Zoe Ball, Ian Botham, Bjorn Again

Zoë Ball was born on 23 November 1970 and was educated at Holy Cross Convent School in Chalfont St Peter. Her father Johnny Ball is famous as a children's presenter "Think Of A Number". It seemed from a young age that Zoë Ball would also follows his footsteps - she began her television career as a runner at Granada Television; she was quickly promoted to a researcher on BSkyB on the children's programme 'Cool Cube'. She then joined Action Time and spent two years as a researcher working on a variety of quiz shows for television. This led to a job as a researcher/assistant producer on Channel 4's Big Breakfast. After auditioning for Children's BBC, Zoë became the presenter of the 'birthday slot' which led to her being a regular presenter of CBBC's music magazine programme 'The Ozone' (voted Best Music Show by Smash Hits), Short Change, a series of consumer programmes for Children's BBC, a regular co-presenter of the 'Broom Cupboard' and host of 'Playdays' on weekday mornings. Zoë was also chosen to co-host the one off BBC special 'An Afternoon on the Moon' which celebrated the 25th Anniversary of man walking on the moon. From spring to Autumn '95 Zoë presented the BBC's Saturday morning summer show 'Fully Booked'. It was while presenting 'Fully Booked' that Zoë caught the eye of the Planet 24 producers and as a result took over from Gaby Roslin as a main presenter on The Big Breakfast. Zoë left that to work as one of the presenters of 'Live and Kicking' a Saturday morning show which she presented alongside her sidekick Jamie Theakston. After she left the show she and Jamie (again) presented a late afternoon chat show on Channel 4, The Priory. She met her now husband DJ Norman Cook in Ibiza where as the first Radio 1 breakfast DJ she was recording the show on the island. It wasn't long before she married him at celeb hotel Babington House and gave birth to their first child a little boy, which they named woody. The last time we saw on screen presenting was at the 2002 Brit Awards which she co-hosted with Frank Skinner.