TELLY'S HELEN SKELTON ON HER SAS ADVENTURE

My boys have seen bits of the show and now they know I’m a brave ‘badass’ mum

- POPPY DANBY

She was the first woman to kayak the Amazon river solo and she has walked a tightrope across Battersea Power Station and completed a 78-mile ultra-marathon.

Then, four years ago, TV presenter Helen Skelton became a mum and thought her days as an action woman were behind her.

As she settled into the very different challenge of looking after sons Ernie, four, and Louis, three, the Countryfile presenter and former Blue Peter star, 36, admits she stopped thinking of herself as a “badass”.

But fans of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins have seen Helen remains full of courage, determination and endurance.

Her quiet composure helped her beat six other celebs to make it to the final with soap star Nikki Sanderson, ex-boxer Tony Bellew, Paralympian Lauren Steadman, TOWIE’s Joey Essex and Rudimental DJ Locksmith.

“Well, ‘just getting on with it’ is what women do, isn’t it?” she smiles.

“I think before you have kids, you can do what you want, go where you want. Now I have two kids, I’m in a different phase of my life.

“Everything I do is based around the boys and that’s how it should be... and it’s how I like it.

“But this was a chance for me to be like, OK, Mummy’s badass!

“Nobody wants to go to work and leave the kids but at least if I had to do it then it was for something cool.”

Helen’s courage on the Channel 4 show has earned her respect from her whole family.

She says: “I ’ve shown [my kids] little bits of the show and they do love it. My little boy, ages ago, saw a girl on a rollercoaster and he said, ‘She’s brave like you, Mummy’.