Speaking For Myself by Cherie Blair (Little, Brown, £18.99)

AT first sight Cherie Blair seems remarkably composed for a woman who's enduring a torrent of personal abuse following publication of her controversial autobiography, Speaking For Myself.

As we sit in her office in London the ex- Prime Minister's wife is warm, without a hint of grandeur, and chatting about trying to resist biscuits and sweet snacks as she struggles to keep the weight off in middle age. "I fight a constant battle against putting on the pounds and often don't win," she sighs.

But that's the very least of her failings, according to her media critics who over the last two weeks have branded her everything from "a cow" to "hypocritical", "money-grubbing" and "delusional"

as they've savaged her book charting her journey as a working-class girl from Liverpool through to her extraordinary and turbulent years living in the public eye with Tony Blair in Downing Street.

Much of the furore has been triggered by her candour. Despite years of insisting on privacy for the family - especially the Blairs' four children - she's given graphic accounts of her tangled early love life dating two men and bedding Tony, details of her contraception and giving birth, conceiving son Leo while staying with the Queen at Balmoral and a miscarriage.

And even Cherie, 53, accustomed to a "relentless press campaign to paint me as a grasping, scheming embarrassment", admits she's taken aback by this latest critical onslaught.

Her smile fades as she says ruefully: "I was not expecting the reaction. I thought by now people would have lost interest in attacking me, but clearly that was rather naive.

"Personal attacks are hurtful, of course. Everyone is human and has feelings.

You have to find ways of coping with the vitriol. The reality is these people writing about me don't actually know me, the real person. And most of them haven't read the whole book, are basing their opinions only on extracts, which doesn't give a fair picture of it."

While she acknowledges that "I'm not Little Miss Perfect; of course there are things I've done that I regret in my life", her aim with her book is to change the public's perception of her and debunk what she regards as the myths and false allegations made over the years.

The book's controversial launch is perhaps an unpromising beginning and she also thinks there was a mistaken expectation of her memoirs.

"Maybe people thought I would write a political book, but it was never going to be that because I'm not a politician," she says. "But I've always loved reading and particularly fiction. So I wanted it to read like a novel, even it is factual rather than fiction. I hope that's the tone I hit."

She wanted to tell "a story for women about a woman's journey. It's my chance to speak for myself rather than be silent and have others speak for me."

She says: "It's about an ordinary girl who's ended up meeting the Queen, going to Buckingham Palace, meeting two Popes, and even having Stevie Wonder sing My Cherie Amour to her. How lucky is that!"

It's undoubtedly an often sentimental "rags-to-riches" tale, as she recalls an impoverished childhood growing up in Crosby, Liverpool, in a single-parent family.

She was raised, with her sister, Lyndsey, by her mother Gale, after their father, actor Tony Booth, abandoned them.

By dint of determination, hard work and talent she triumphed academically and became a lawyer, falling for Tony Blair in 1975 when they were both training as young barristers.

They've been married for 27 years and she says: "Over the years I have thought about what made me choose Tony. It was partly chemistry - I fancied him rotten, and still do - but partly because I thought even then that he had something.

"Behind the charm there was a steely quality to him. Frankly he fascinated me as I had never met anybody quite like him before, not somebody who could give me a run for my money."

He loves her, she says, for her "unpredictable character", adding: I am impulsive and he is not. I am the abrasiveness against which he can spark."

After Labour's victory in 1997 swept the Blairs into Downing Street she saw her major role as preserving their family life, supporting her husband and letting home be an escape valve for the intense pressure.

It was where sometimes he could lose his temper and "release his frustration and anxiety".

She says: "It's a lonely and hard job being Prime Minister and the great thing is to have your family, who are there for you. That whole emotional support is, I think, really important and Tony has acknowledged that himself."

Cherie, who combined her public responsibilities as Prime Minister's wife with her career as a leading human rights lawyer and QC, says: "On the whole, I think you're a much more rounded person if you have a family to keep your feet on the ground, especially young children as we had. Prime ministers are just ordinary people in extraordinary situations."

She remembers fondly one occasion when Tony, stressed and anxious during the Iraq war, was bathing Leo, then aged four. "Leo said: Daddy, you look worried.

You're just like me. I'm worried because I've lost my dinosaur!' It broke the tension and Tony had to laugh because it was just such an innocent perspective."

But did her years in Downing Street change her? The woman whom her husband describes affectionately as a "bolshie Scouser" smiles as she says: "I think - you probably can't believe this - but it's probably made me more diplomatic! I think Tony was surprised that I mastered myself most of the time. I do come from a whole legacy of women who spoke their minds."

Appropriately, she doesn't shirk from recounting times when her husband disappointed or exasperated her with his behaviour and says: "Generally speaking, in marriages it's not usually one person who dominates and gets all their way all the time. It is much more a sort of see-saw.

"When he became Prime Minister it was more difficult to keep that equilibrium.

It was little things like being late for dinner, which when you've cooked it most people would find slightly stressful! But he would have a very good excuse - like saying I had to talk to George Bush'. Well, there's no arguing with that really is there?"

Her loyalty was unswerving for Blair's biggest challenge during his term in office - the Iraq war. I always knew Tony would never lie to me, which was why I was 100 per cent behind him over Iraq."

She recalls her own public humiliation when she had to apologise over the scandal of buying Bristol flats which had involved Peter Foster.

"I regret that incident because of the whole disastrous distraction it was for my husband at a time when he really had more important things to do," she says.

Of another controversy, the storm over her refusal to reveal whether Leo had received the MMR - measles, mumps and rubella - jab, she says: "I regret... not being upfront from the very beginning."

But she adds firmly: "Do I regret us going into Number 10? Not a bit. It was a fantastic privilege and I look back on what Tony achieved with a huge amount of pride. And I'm proud that we, as a family, went in together and stayed together and have come out together, happy and going on to the next challenges in our lives.'' Nowadays, the woman who in her early days as a trainee lawyer often barely had enough money for square meals has achieved her dream of financial security.

Cherie confesses: "Insecurity about money is probably ingrained in me from my childhood, but I certainly don't recognise the description of me as moneygrubbing' - not at all.

"But we're all creatures of our background and even today, although it's a long time since I've been in a poor household, I still find it hard not to eat everything on my plate."

She recently received a reported £1m advance for her book and is now living in their splendid home in Connaught Square, London - one of five properties they own including the latest, a £4m country home near their old official residence, Chequers.

She revels in normal life "out of the goldfish bowl" of Downing Street and wants to concentrate on her legal career - "I don't think the book affects that at all" - and charity work.

She says her husband read the book before publication and their elder children Euan, Nicky and Kathryn - now all in their twenties - "probably used the word search to find the parts where they're mentioned! I don't think they've read it all.

"It was a family journey and they are so much a part of the story, but I wouldn't have put in anything about them without their agreement."

And she says firmly: "I'm very happy with the book. I'm very conscious of privacy and what is appropriate and inappropriate and I've written what I believe is an appropriate and truthful account of my life.

"It was an opportunity to speak for myself, but did I expect that everyone would agree? No!"