Model Emma Padfield was once a favourite with tabloid editors but has now swapped the high life for marriage and children in County Durham. She talks to Women's Editor Christen Pears.

VIEWERS of the Big Breakfast will recognise Emma Padfield as one of the bikini-clad girls who used to accompany Keith Chegwin around the doorsteps of Britain. Others will remember her name from the tabloid stories linking her with former Leeds footballers Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate.

She's a Miss Great Britain finalist who used to hang out in London's trendiest clubs and party with celebrities, but today Emma is more likely to be found at home in Stanley, County Durham, spending time with her husband and baby daughter.

Tall and blonde, she immediately attracts attention in the coffee shop where we meet but she seems oblivious to it. She's more interested in telling me about her daughter, Imogen, and within minutes of arriving produces a photograph from her bag to show me. She tells me she wanted to bring her along to the interview - "She's gorgeous," she says - but decided to leave her at home. It's a touching display of maternal pride from a woman I expected to be self-obsessed and greedy for fame.

Emma's transformation from minor celebrity to doting wife and mother began three years ago when she met factory manager Colin Nicholson while on holiday in Majorca. The couple have been together ever since and married last year.

"It was quite strange being up here at first because I'm used to city life but I don't think I would move now. My life's here with my husband and baby," she says.

Now 24, Emma started modelling when she was just 14. Two years later, she successfully auditioned for The Price is Right but was then turned down when the show's producers discovered how young she was. Although disappointed, she didn't let the setback stop her and concentrated on her modelling career, with assignments including London Fashion Week and The Clothes Show.

She completed a BTEC in performing arts and then enrolled to do a law degree but didn't stick with it. "I kept thinking I might go back and do it some time in the future but not for a while."

As her public profile grew, her name began to appear in the tabloids but appearing on the Big Breakfast opened the floodgates of publicity. "There was a time when I used to pick up the papers and I was in them every day. They used to call me a wild child and party animal. I did go out but usually only once a week. Most of the time, I used to be in bed by half past nine."

But later in the interview, she admits to being horribly drunk when invited to model clothes for GMTV. She had been partying the night before and had only been home for half an hour when the taxi came to take her to the studio. She found herself slumped on a sofa next to Lorraine Kelly, desperately trying not to throw up. It sounds distinctly like the behaviour of a party animal.

So how much truth is there in the stories about her? Very little, according to Emma.

"When I used to go out in London, I would meet someone at a club and then the next day in the papers there would be a story even though there was nothing going on. Some of the stuff is true. I have contributed to some articles and I'm quite friendly with some journalists, but a lot of it isn't."

She admits to relationships with two footballers, Lee Sharpe and Lee Bowyer, but strongly denies any links with Jonathan Woodgate.

"I saw Jon at a couple of parties but we were never involved. That was just the papers making it up. I must have been one of the Press Complaints Commission's most regular customers but they never did anything about it."

The tabloids certainly aren't above embellishing the facts or even making up quotes but during our interview, the familiar phrase 'There's no smoke without fire' keeps popping into my mind.

I suspect Emma has a selective memory but I suppose she can be forgiven for trying to draw a line under her past. Mixing in the circles she did, she could easily have become like glamour model Jordan but she has chosen a very different route. That does not mean, however, that she doesn't want to return to the limelight. At the moment, she's enjoying spending time with Imogen, but she plans to resume her career.

She's auditioned for a girl band and, from hundreds of hopefuls, has been selected as one of the final 30. She did sign a recording contract a few years ago but admits she messed around. "I was lazy and they dropped me. It was stupid but I've got another chance now." It's typical of the new, mature Emma Padfield.

She hopes to do more TV presenting and acting, as well as modelling, although that will have to wait until she's back in shape - something she seems obsessed with. Before we meet, she's been swimming and she keeps fingering her denim dress, pulling it tightly across her stomach.

Last week she filmed an episode of a new ITV programme, Girls' Club, and her agent is tipping her as the next Kelly Brook. But even if her career does take off, she wants to remain in the North-East.

"If we have to move, we have to but I would hope to be able to commute and spend most of my time up here. With London, I've been there and done that and I don't need to do it any more. I know that I'm still dead young but I started modelling when I was 14 and I've had to grow up a lot more quickly than other people my age."

She is, however, apprehensive about the attention she may attract from the press and is keen to shield Imogen as much as possible.

"It isn't nice but you just have to get on with it. Most of it just goes over my head now and Colin is lovely. He's really cool about everything. If something goes in the paper, he knows it's not true. At the end of the day, I haven't done anything and the people who know me know that."