BBC Breakfast star Carol Kirkwood left fans heartbroken as she confessed "I'm too old" when talking about her presenting career. The meteorologist appeared on James Martin's Saturday Morning, where the ITV chef cooked her up a "well done" steak at her request. But Carol left fans sympathetic when she began to talk about her age.

At 63, Carol is a successful author and TV presenter - but she believes one dream role is out of her grasp forever. Discussing her previous work, she told James: "I worked as a secretary at the BBC for a while, as a production secretary ironically on BBC Breakfast, and then I left.

"But I'd still got lots of friends there and one of my friends said, 'What do you want to do?' and I said 'I'd love to be a Blue Peter presenter, but of course I'm too old, I'm never going to do it'."

Reassuringly, James told her: "Don't be so daft!" but Carol insisted: "Well certainly not now!"

She joked her initial career in commerce was "a million years ago, back in the days of the bows and arrows".

Carol went on to explain: "But anyway, when I left one of my friends said, 'We're looking for presenters in television training, a stooge presenter to train other people.'

"I said I'd go along and had an audition, and unbelievably got the job and then later on I thought I want to do this for real.

"So I joined my local cable corporation and did everything - I was a researcher, a producer, director and a presenter. The only thing I didn't do was the camera work when we were filming it."

Heartbroken fans expressed their sympathies on X, with one tweeting: "Petition for #BluePeter to let Carol Kirkwood present an episode to fulfil her dream!!"