Radio’s Amanda is McFly-ing high!

5:08pm Tuesday 24th July 2007

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A HOSPITAL radio presenter has bagged an exclusive interview with chart-toppers McFly - and left her daughter speechless.

Weeks of pestering finally paid off for Royal Blackburn Hospital volunteer Amanda Townsend, 36, who mingled with journalists from around the world for a chat with the boys.

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She said: "My daughter Lisa is a huge McFly fan and we travel all over the country to see them perform.

"We were already going to the show at Aintree racecourse when I saw a notice on a board at the hospital saying they needed a presenter to do a show on groups, meaning local pop bands.

"I jumped at the chance and decided to set my sights higher."

After tens of emails and telephone calls, the band's management company granted Amanda, from Clitheroe, an exclusive interview at the gig, and she took along her daugter Lisa, 14 and Lisa's best friend Paige, also 14.

Amanda said: "I wanted to ask questions that they didn't normally get asked.

"Lisa and Paige were so star-struck all they said during the whole interview was Oh my God, I love your trainers!' "It was fantastic to see their faces, I couldn't have bought that for a million pounds."

The McFly boys; Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd, famous for number one hits such as All About You also swapped the trio's original back-row tickets for some in the front-row next to Danny's mum, girlfriend and aunty.

Amanda said: "Two of the boys are from Bolton, so I took along some black pudding sausages from Cowman's famous sausage shop in Clitheroe.

"They went wild for them and it was good to give them a bit of Lancashire when they're away so often."

Amanda now plans to grab more celebrity gossip, turning her attentions to record-breaking singer Rhianna, and come-back kings Take That, as they are the people patients want to hear quizzed.

If she does manage to make celebrity interviews a regular feature, she hopes the radio producers will be more geared up.

She said: "About two weeks ago when I knew I had the interview lined up, I asked to book the outside microphone, and was told that it was broken and they hadn't bothered fixing it because they didn't believe I could actually pull it off.

"That meant a mad rush at the end and we had to borrow equipment from another station in Burnley."