Virgin Media’s Elaine Crowley has revealed that as a child, she was ‘terrified’ of cameras.
Revealing this, Elaine also shared rare family photos with viewers on her show. In a big family with lots of siblings, Elaine noted that it’s “so hard to make a bit of noise”.
Speaking to Today FM star Paula MacSweeney, who comes from a family of eight, Elaine explained that her family is made up of 10 siblings.
“I see your eight and I give you two. Look at this gang!”
Speaking about the family photo, she continued: “From left to right: Cathy, Veronica’s got the really curly hair at the top, underneath that really sour-looking child in the green top that would be me, Colm is a little bit to my right looking very pale and interesting.
“If you go straight down from Colm with the curly hair looking [away] that is Brendan, then straight up again that’s my dad obviously, that’s my mam sitting down underneath my dad, on my mother’s lap is my brother Liam and I will never forget that too because that was after Christmas.
“That is my tea set in Liam’s hand and he would not stop crying for the duration we were trying to get him into the photograph, he wouldn’t do it. I had to give him my tea set to shut him up so he’d sit and that’s the only one that he wasn’t crying [in]”
Elaine then shared that she was scared of cameras as a child. “I was afraid of cameras until I was about six. My very first professional photograph as well I remember I was balling crying at that and they had to coax me into the room.”
Describing one of the photos, she continued, “I’m screaming on John’s lap there, screaming crying because I don’t like cameras.”
“You know those photo studios with all those lights and the umbrellas over them – I was terrified of the photographer. I was so scared.
“I will never ever forget it, I was heaving crying – heaving!
“But yeah I didn’t like cameras very much at all, not at all. I was always the cranky one.”
