Alison Hammond admits This Morning blunder left her fearing the worst

On 3 October 2018, as This Morning celebrated their 30th anniversary on ITV, Alison Hammond was tasked with taking a visit to the floating map of Britain in Liverpool, that had been featured on the show years before. But, as chaos ensued Alison feared the worst.

Appearing on the What If podcast with Lorraine Kelly and her daughter Rosie, Alison explained how the iconic moment six years ago came about: "I was on (the map of) Great Britain and I jumped over, I was grabbing his arm to try and steady myself and at which point, he went off."

Despite her obvious error, she wondered in hindsight whether the sailor might have secretly played his own part in the blunder: "Sometimes I look at it and I think, did he purposely try and do that to me, to get his moment?"

"I was absolutely mortified, absolutely mortified. Honestly, I was just thinking to myself 'I hope he's alright', because I didn't want anything to happen, plus it was live television." she added.

Speaking earlier in the podcast, the presenter claimed that she briefly feared that she had killed the man, saying: "I actually thought at one point I killed him. It was literally about three seconds of thinking, have I killed that man."

But, after he was brought to safety, she immediately offered her apologies: "I was terribly sorry. I was very chivalrous and gave him my coat because it was so cold."

Lorraine mused that the whole thing was an accident waiting to happen all along: "That's what happens when you have a map of Britain in water and you have to jump from England to Ireland."

After appearing on Big Brother in 2002, Alison would go on to start presenting and reporting for This Morning in the same year. Since then, her career has continued to flourish with various other tv roles soon to follow, including participation as a contestant on Celebrity Masterchef, Strictly Come Dancing and I'm Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.