RADIO presenter Kaye Adams comes across as something of a serious-minded lady.

Right now, the Grangemouth-born anchor is fronting Radio Scotland's morning show, three hours of high-energy chat, on a range of subjects from suicide to breastfeeding.

But what's the former politics and economics graduate really about? Did she grow up wanting to be a Sue Lawley or a Selina Scott?

"Well, I once thought about becoming an actress," she admits, grinning about her teenage years. What? This is like Sean Connery claiming to be captivated by flower arranging.

"But I realised I would have been too inhibited. Then I saw myself as a barrister, striding around a court holding on to my lapels, and I became keen on the debating society at school."

So there was a keenness to be noticed?

"Perhaps," she grins. "But the common theme in actors I've interviewed is they don't like to be themselves, they like to slip into character.

"But I can't play at being someone else. I like to be myself. I'm happy in my own little box."

And Adams has done very well in her little television box, moving from hard news and spending time at Westminster with Central Television to STV, where she revealed a talent for discussion programmes in Scottish Women.

THE progression to national TV with the oestrogen-fuelled panel show Loose Women saw her anchor a show that needed a serious weight, but also a talent to steer effortlessly towards the slightly absurd.

Did she feel disappointed to have dropped the politics overboard?

"Westminster wasn't a world I was comfortable in," she reveals. "I met a lot of wonderful people, but I also came across so many full of their own self-importance, men who traded statistics and facts and figures like it was a big boys club, trading football stickers.

"It was too much a facade, and I continually had to search for the real intelligence. And there were also a lot of chancers. I've since tried not to be blinded by status and appearance."

The broadcasting world can be fickle. Has this presented problems for the classic Capricorn, someone who needs to be in control of their life?

"Yes, I'm a bit Communist Russia," she says, grinning. "I like a five year plan.

"Being a freelance has been terrifying at times because you crave security. And there have been critical points along the way. When I had Bonnie (in 2007, and younger sister to Charly ) I just felt it was too hard with two kids of an age difference with two very different sets of needs. That was a real challenge."

The 52 year-old, who lives in Glasgow's West End with tennis coach partner Ian Campbell, admits she wasn't quite ready for the challenges of motherhood.

"No, I wasn't the Earth Mother type," she admits, grinning. "I had no high expectations of my talents as a mother. I did buy the books on motherhood, but they tortured and terrorised me to the point I threw them out. They make you feel so inadequate."

KAYE likes to be in control but it's to her credit she admits she can't always hold it all together.

"When I came back to Scotland to work for Radio Scotland initially I found it harder than television for a whole host of reasons. Everything is on you. There are no commercial breaks. And what you're up against at times is people at home with Google access. They can have data in a second that I don't have."

What about when she's berated, which often happens?

"Well, you don't suck it up," she says in a no-nonsense voice.

"I'll always be professional and I'm paid by the BBC but I'm not going to dish out crap and I'm certainly not paid to take crap."

She adds, smiling; "It's like the signs you see at train stations: 'Our staff will do our best to provide a great service, but please don't slap them across the face with a fish supper.' I'm going to put up a similar sign on the BBC website."

Kaye took a slap from the BBC four years ago after she criticised London Mayor Boris Johnson on social media.

"I don't regret the content of what I said, but I do regret about being naive about the impact of social media," she says.

"I didn't get the enormity of it at all. What you have to do in this job is strike a balance between not being a propagandist but at the same time not being reduced to a Speak Your Weight machine."

What's refreshing about Adams is she's very much her own woman, and serious. But there's a performer lurking beneath. Chat reveals as student she'd dress up with pals in full Sound of Music regalia - "I was Mother Superior_ and sing The Hills Are Alive . . ".

The entertainer still lurks within and she'd definitely appear on Strictly if asked, and perhaps even Big Brother.

Does the performer within find occasional release via karaoke, perhaps.

"I last did it about twenty years ago," she admits, shuddering in recall.

" I still wake up with nightmares about an STV Christmas party where Shereen Nanjiani and I sang Ebony and Ivory - the longest, dreariest song

ever written and then I did Madonna's Like A Virgin.

"That same night, Kirsty Young sang That Old Devil Called Love, and was outstanding. We all sat there and thought 'Wow.' A star was born that night, while another fell from the sky."

Not true. Adams continues to twinkle. Within. It's just that we usually see and hear her serious side.

lRadio Scotland, Monday to Thursday, 9am to Noon