MATTY SUTTON meets the presenter and Glasgow Star Turn judge

HER bright red shoes clicking on the floor brings a touch of glamour to an otherwise grey Glasgow day.

Catriona Shearer orders a latte and throws her black leather jacket over the back of the sofa.

As she enjoys a break on her day off, the 30-year-old BBC television presenter and journalist talks about how she always knew she wanted a job in the media.

She recalls picking up an old copy of the Bunty comic last year when her parents were clearing out the attic. The comic featured her, as a nine-year-old, proclaiming to the world that she wanted to be a "journalist".

More than two decades later, Catriona has achieved her dream.

Born in Lanark, the daughter of photographer and social worker William, and primary school worker Lorraine, Catriona went to school in Shotts.

After finishing school, she studied journalism at Edinburgh Napier University and it was there she got the vital experience that won her a job at the BBC.

In 2003 she graduated and was offered her first job doing press and marketing for the university.

But her older brother Marc was already living in London and Catriona had set her heart on getting to the Big Smoke.

She applied for a job with the NHS University, and, to her surprise, was offered the highly paid position, complete with a car.

But she had not been there long when a contact from Radio Five Live – a station she had done work experience with while at university – got in touch offering her a job on the station's breakfast show.

She handed in her notice to the NHS, giving up a permanent contract for two weeks' temporary work with the BBC.

Catriona said: "My brother was in London at the time and I thought, 'If I don't move to London now I am never going to know what it is like'. London had that pull to go and experience everything that it had to offer."

SO she took drastic action. "I saw the job advert for NHS head of publications and applied for it, never thinking I had a hope of getting it," she says. "But I got the job, which for me was really just a means of getting to London.

"I moved there and it was a fantastic job, particularly because of my age and lack of experience. it was well paid with a pension and a company car.

"I was 22 and it was nuts, I couldn't believe it.

"I was there for about two months and then the BBC phoned me up and said: 'We are looking for someone for Five Live Breakfast and we think you would be perfect for it'.

"It was only weeks work at the BBC, but I thought. 'I am going for it'. The next day I handed my notice in for at the NHS job."

But those 'two weeks' at Radio Five stretched to two years before she returned to Scotland in 2005 for a job on the Radio Scotland news desk.

Catriona's role as judge in our Glasgow's Star Turn contest will also be a labour of love for her because she is a big music fan and spends her free time going to festivals and music gigs all over the world.

She said: "I have really eclectic taste in music, but I like the Black Keys and Kasabian and Plan B. I like a lot of electro rock, and a lot of different things and singer/songwriter stuff. "I go to a lot of festivals and gigs, such as Rockness, and festivals abroad – as many as I can get to."

In 2006 she went to Cardiff to work on music and lifestyle shows, but she missed the thrill of tight deadlines and breaking stories. So in 2007 she returned to work in Scotland and has been here ever since.

She said: "When I went to work on music programmes I missed the news, the immediacy and the urgency, and even just knowing what was going on in the world and how it was affecting people in your area.

"But I do enjoy doing the music stuff because it is nice to dip in and out of it and still be doing news full-time."

Her career has seen her interview a wide cross-section of people, from Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister, to model Jordan. But one of the highlights of her career was presenting Reporting Scotland from Wimbledon two years ago.

Catriona says: "That was great, because the event is such an iconic thing, it is world renowned and everyone knows about it.

"You grow up watching it on TV and all of a sudden you are there presenting BBC Scotland's top news programme from the iconic surroundings of Wimbledon. It was fabulous to see everything."

And she still loves her job."It is always exciting because it is different every day. That is the beauty of live television, you never know what is going to happen, so I find that still incredibly exciting," she says.

"I would really like to see where this goes and take news presenting as far as I can within BBC Scotland and then, I hope, branch out into other bits and pieces.

"I would like to make some documentaries and I would like to do entertainment stuff, where you can show your personality a bit more.

"With news you are not there to be a personality you are there to tell a story. It's not about you, it's about getting stories across, so you have to be very straight with that.

"So I would also like to do something that would let me have a bit more fun."