Inside Jo Brand's life – famous daughter, Princess Diana link and brainy career

dailystar.co.uk:

BBC panel shows like QI, Have I Got News For You and Countdown, while she's currently hosting The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice and Britain's Best Junior Doctors.That latter show might sound like a strange one for a comedian to be the main personality, but not if you know about Jo's background.So come with us as we do a deep dive into the personal life of one of the funniest women in Britain.Jo looked back on her school days while talking to Tom Read Wilson on his podcast Tom Read Wilson has words with…As the name suggests, the podcast has a key focus on words.

When she was a gust, Jo recalled an anecdote from her Kent student days, specifically some spelling tests. She said: "I'm very attached to the word portmanteau itself because when I was at primary school, and I remember this really well, I must have been seven or eight, we had a spelling test and I got 19 out of 20."The teacher was fairly gobsmacked because we were a Kent village school and we were actually all a bit thick most of us.

The only word I got wrong was portmanteau, I put an 'o' on the end instead of an 'eau', and so from that point onward I always knew what that word meant."She went on to say: "This is going to sound like a humble brag but I went to the local comprehensive and after six months they got my parents in and said I'd have to go up two years as I was too intelligent for my year."Her school success led her to Brunel University, where she undertook a joint social science degree with a Registered Mental Nurse qualification.Before that, she had worked as a cleaner and bartender in various pubs around Kent.She has previously said: "Those bars were a big part of my social life - but that's usually what happens when you're a student"After.