Konnie Huq

Kanak "Konnie" Asha Huq (/ˈhʌk/; Bengali: কনক হক; born 17 July 1975) is a British television presenter and writer. She is the longest-serving female presenter of Blue Peter, having presented it from 1 December 1997 until 23 January 2008. She presented the 2010 series of The Xtra Factor on ITV2.

Early life and education

Huq was born in Hammersmith, west London to Sunni Muslim Bangladeshi parents who had emigrated to England in the 1960s. She grew up in Ealing, west London, with her two elder sisters, Rupa and Nutun. She was educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School in London and left school with nine GCSEs and A-levels in physics, mathematics and chemistry. Huq studied sciences for her A-Levels, but chose to study economics at Robinson College, Cambridge and graduated from Cambridge University with a 2:1 degree.

Early career

In 1989, at the age of 14, Huq was a guest on Blue Peter with the National Youth Music Theatre, when she sang a solo. Before the 1992 general election, Huq interviewed Labour leader Neil Kinnock for the children's programme Newsround. She appeared as a contestant on Blockbusters in the same year. She also appeared as an uncredited extra playing a schoolgirl in the BBC One sitcom 2point4 Children in the Series 2 episode "I'm Going Slightly Mad".