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For the first time since it began, Britain’s Most Daring was the centre of positive media attention, thanks to the BMD Northern Singers’ performance at the Heads Together concert. Phil’s Sunday paper had a very complimentary review of the concert in its Arts section, including a paragraph praising the choir’s contribution, and had a lovely picture of Gemma and company on stage. It also ran the story in the main part of the newspaper, under the headline ‘TV dare show choir wow royals at charity concert’, and accompanied the article with two pictures: another one of the choir performing, and, much more interestingly, a picture of them being introduced to the young royals backstage, in which Gemma appeared to be talking to Prince Harry! As soon as she was shown the picture, Maddie went to the online version of the newspaper, found the picture, downloaded it onto her phone, and sent it to Stacie. Lissie insisted that Maddie sent it to her as well; once she’d received it, she posted it to all the WhatsApp groups she belongs to!

The warble of Maddie’s phone brought us news that made us switch on the TV on a Sunday morning for the first time ever. Stacie’s text, as well as thanking Maddie profusely for sending the picture, which Stacie didn’t know anything about, told us that Gemma and the others were guests on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. Although Tim Lovejoy is not someone I would choose to watch on a regular basis, the fact that Gemma was on kept me and the girls glued to the screen for the whole three hours! The five daredevils tried their hand at cooking with Simon, the show’s chef, though I’m not sure I’d want to eat Peanut Butter & Jelly Pie and, judging by the look on her face when she tried it, nor will Gemma want to eat any ever again! In a series of short interviews, Tim chatted to Gemma, Eilidh, Ayla, Matt, and Tommy, mainly about being on Britain’s Most Daring and taking part in the Heads Together concert. Lissie got her second mention on national television, when Tim asked Gemma to “tell us about the inspiration behind your amazing rendition of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’”. Our youngest daughter was, once again, beside herself with excitement. After each picking a song for the Sunday Brunch Playlist – Gemma chose ‘Symphony’ by Clean Bandit and Zara Larsson – the five were asked what they were up to this week. It was a passable attempt by Tim to get them to reveal what their latest dare involved, but none of them were falling for it. As 12:30 approached, the show ended with the BMD Northern Singers performing ‘Stand By Me’ live in the Sunday Brunch studio.

The next day, the tabloids all featured the choir prominently, as they each reported on the success of the dare and the popularity of the download of their performance. Needless to say, the girls downloaded it straight after last week’s show; I went out and bought three CDs on Monday, partly because I don’t do downloads, preferring to have something physical to keep permanently, but also because the cover of the CD featured a lovely picture from the concert with Gemma looking really pretty. One copy was for me, and I gave one to each of the girls as well. If I needed any further justification for my indulgence, I reminded myself that all the money raised was going to an extremely good cause.

As the week went on, so each newspaper went looking for a different scoop relating to one or other of the daredevils. Gemma’s childhood trauma, which she had mentioned at the concert, was, of course, of great interest to the tabloid press. It didn’t take long for them to track us down, and we were inundated with emails and phone-calls asking for our story, with each paper trying to outbid the other to get an exclusive interview. Phil and I talked about it, and we decided to politely decline all offers of interviews and stories. If Gemma wanted to talk to the press about it, that was up to her; but we didn’t think the intrusion would be good for us as a family, and we especially didn’t want Maddie to get distracted from preparing for her ‘A’ Levels. I made a particular point of warning the tabloids against going after ‘little Lissie’. Stacie and her Mam were getting even more attention, so much so that on Tuesday Stacie got a text from her Mam telling her to go to her Auntie Clare’s after school instead of coming home. Stacie stayed with her Auntie for the rest of the school week, as her Mam tried to fend off the hacks. I phoned Justine and offered our spare room for her and/or Gemma, in case either of them wanted to escape from the siege outside their house, but they didn’t take up the offer.

Fortunately for us, but tragically for those caught up in it, a terrorist atrocity in London took Britain’s Most Daring off the news agenda on Thursday, and things calmed down after that, at least for us. Not, though, for Lissie.

Following last weekend’s show, Lissie was very much in demand at school! All her classmates and schoolfriends, and plenty of other pupils who only vaguely knew her, wanted a piece of her. At first she really enjoyed the attention, but as the week dragged on she was getting fed up of being ‘little Lissie off the telly’. Her closest friends, once they’d had their curiosity sated, let the subject drop and just treated her as the same old Lissie they already knew and liked. But the hangers-on just kept coming. So much so that, on Saturday afternoon, when she and Rayna had been planning to go to the leisure centre together, Lissie didn’t want to leave the house. So, instead, Rayna came round and the two of them chilled out together and forgot all about Britain’s Most Daring, if only for a few hours.

Maddie’s opportunities to see Gemma were severely limited by schoolwork and the fact that Stacie was staying at her Auntie’s. She did learn, from Stacie, that Gemma was back at work, but that she was out most evenings doing stuff for this week’s dare. Stacie, though, didn’t know what the dare was; at least, not until Thursday teatime. After that, we all had a pretty good idea of what she was up to, as did almost everyone on social media, thanks to a tweet that went viral. ‘OMG! Just been photobombed by Gemma off of @BritainsMostDaring’ read the tweet, which was accompanied by a picture of Gemma, arms aloft, standing behind two young women, one of whom, presumably, was the tweeter.

Maddie spent Saturday putting the final touches to her revision plan. With ‘A’ levels coming up, she knows that her social life will have to be put on hold for the next six weeks or so. She’s conscientious enough to be trusted to do this, and she’s determined to get the grades she needs to go to Uni in September, so we just give her any encouragement she requires as and when she seeks it.