FACED with the prospect of popping a sun-dried worm into my mouth left me feeling less than enthusiastic about the task that lay ahead after watching ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

Thankfully the three bowls of grubs that I was faced with was nothing compared to the feast of horrors celebrities, Jilly Goolden and Carol Thatcher were confronted with.

They had to tuck into the private parts of kangaroo, whereas I was up against sun-dried worms and spicy flavoured maggots.

Despite the huge gulf in savoury snack, the mere thought of crunching on a critter left me grasping for a drink of water.

The delightful treats were being made available to people calling into Hartlepool's First Choice travel agents, the sponsors of the ITV show, where they were offered the chance to win £500 worth of holiday vouchers if they could stomach the Bushtucker Challenge.

The Thai green-flavoured crickets had a hollow feel that disintegrated when put in your mouth and they were easily swallowed.

The next on the list was a choice of chilli, barbecue or cheese-flavoured maggots.

These were again easily dispatched with the flavouring helping to mask the fact I was eating oven-baked maggots.

The last bowl was a completely different proposition, it was overflowing with inch-long, fat blackened mopane worms which, like the best tomatoes, had been sun-dried.

The worm is the caterpillar of the emperor moth, which is one of the world's largest moths, and apparently a local favourite in southern Africa.

Picking one up was the easy part, having to crunch into it was just the start of a very unpleasant culinary experience.

There was no explosion of flavour, but the specially reared delicacy certainly left a bizarre aftertaste.

It was like trying to swallow chalk, no matter how hard you tried to get rid of the sensation, the next flick of your tongue found another piece of the worm and the whole revolting experience was relived.

Having tried it at first hand, I don't envy the contestants on the show. I'll stick with my pub grub any day.