Paranga is the new restaurant at the InterContinental beach club. Walking along the wooden planks already gives you the feeling you’re on a ship. The white ropes and white canvas awnings complete the nautical feel, while the unmatchable view of St George’s Bay explains why this has become such a popular sandy beach.

Louise Tedesco is already here, looking fresh and elegant as always, dressed in cool white with her dark hair gelled back and sporting large sunglasses.

She might look aloof for about a split second, but then she removes her glasses, smiles her wide smile and starts talking in her familiar, easy-going voice, and any vestige of aloofness disappears.

Louise first started with Rediffusion reading radio plays for the school broadcasts in the late 1970s.

When her sister took part in the Miss Malta contest, Louise decided to give modelling a try.

“However, compared to the other girls I felt I was too short and somehow I knew that this wasn’t really my line. I also had a negative experience when I took part in the competition to choose the 12 girls for the “Miss Elegance” calendar – not because I didn’t win, but because of the way it was done. We were all on stage and the winners were asked to step forward. I felt so embarrassed and humiliated to be among those who were left out. It made me feel like such a loser. So I decided never to take part in any more competitions. That’s how I am – if I feel that I’m not good at something I stop.”

One thing which Louise has always loved is fashion – ever since I can remember she has always been stylish in that classic, understated way so favoured by the Italians. She attributes her love of clothes to her father who would lavish the family with the latest fashions when he returned from his frequent trips abroad.

“Because of his business in Saudi Arabia, he would spend about three months away at a time. He’d come back with suitcases full of designer clothes such as Rocco Barocco, and that definitely influenced me.”

Her father is, of course, the well-known Victor Tedesco, former president of Hamrun Spartans, who was recently honoured by the Malta Football Awards with a special award for his lifetime contribution to the game. It was a moving moment and Louise admits that she was crying throughout.

“He’s 87 now and unfortunately he’s lost a lot of his eyesight, all he sees is a blur. My sister took him up on stage because I was too emotional to do it. Considering what he’s been through, he still looks well. His memory is as sharp as ever.”

A few years ago my colleague Marie Benoit published a very touching photo of Louise on her wedding day being fondly kissed by her father.

“Yes, that photo is very special because there is quite a generation gap between me and my parents – my mother was 49 and my father was 50 when I was born. Imagine, they already had a three-year-old grandson! I always thought that they would not be around to see me get married or have kids. But thank God they are still with me.”

Born the youngest of six siblings, Louise grew up with parents who were much stricter and, obviously, more old-fashioned than those of her friends.

“When I was going out with Peter, who is now my husband, they would never allow us to be at home by ourselves. On the other hand, my father always says that I’m the one who always answered him back the most! That’s probably because he was away a lot when I was young so I didn’t have this ‘fear’ of him.”

Louise also has a very close relationship with her mother whom she admires a lot for the hardships she has been through.

“My eldest sister contracted polio when she was six months old and can’t walk, so my mother has always had to take care of her and continues to do so to this day. Now she also has my father to look after. Apart from that she even helps out with all the grandchildren – she is an amazing woman.”

It was through her father that Louise got her first break in TV when she was 16. His friends Charles Xuereb and Ray Azzopardi asked if she was interested in being a “valletta” on their new programme Arzella.

“When I see videos of myself in those days with that enormous hair – oh my God! I was very scared and I still get scared to this day. I don’t have this supreme self-confidence before I go on air.”

And yet she always looks so calm and collected.

“No, you should see me back stage – I’m a wreck. I think if I lose that, it will be time to stop because for TV you need to have that bit of stage fright. Even if I spend two weeks not reading the news, I get extremely nervous.”

When Xandir Malta announced it was looking for new TV announcers, Louise decided to apply and she was accepted. Eventually she became a full-timer, working as a secretary as well as announcing.

Since then she has always worked in TV and at 38, her career is still going strong. After 11 years with the national station, with which she did everything from reading the news to presenting music, discussion and sports programmes, her next step was with the Nationalist-owned station NET TV.

Anyone who worked with Xandir Malta in the 1980s is forever labelled as being Labour, so when Louise appeared on the screens of NET TV more than a few eyebrows were raised. She felt the backlash of those who couldn’t understand how she was on a Nationalist station, when her father had once contested elections for the Labour Party.

“NET TV invited me to the opening of the station which was a fund-raising event for the party – I was practically fainting before I went on, and afterwards I was told the phone didn’t stop ringing with people demanding to know what I was doing there! However, I’ve always had my own mind and just because I come from a family with certain political beliefs doesn’t mean I have to hold the same opinions,” Louise says firmly.

When Louise runs through the programmes she has presented over the years, and the people she has worked with, it sounds like a Who’s Who of local television: Mario Ellul, Charles Saliba, John Demanuele, to name just a few.

It is when we talk about Hector Bruno, however, that Louise’s face lights up.

“It’s like I’m presenting with my brother. He’s got an amazing personality, both on screen and off. I can’t explain our chemistry – it just happened, from the first time we appeared together on the magazine programme Terrazzin. We didn’t rehearse, we didn’t decide beforehand what we were going to say, we just went on air and it worked. The rapport was great, we just clicked.”

Viewers also comment on what a great team they make – together they have that indefinable quality which is rare to find. They are the quintessential comic duo – he with his dry wit and an expressive face which speaks volumes, and she with her ability to retort back, trying to keep a straight face while just about suppressing a giggle. Any programme they present is enjoyable because they are so obviously enjoying each other’s company.

“You always know where you are with Hector – if you’re annoying him he’ll just tell you, and I am very much the same. I can’t hide my feelings, and I don’t know how to bite my tongue: I’ll immediately tell you what I’m thinking. We really respect each other. Hector is also extremely intelligent and is one of the few people I know who can interview anyone, even the Prime Minister, with hardly any preparation.”

In between her TV career, Louise got married and had twin boys, Timmy and Nicky, who are now 11 years old.

“In the early days of my pregnancy I had a bit of a scare, and my gynaecologist told me to take things easy for a while – she said if you have to lose the baby, it’s better for it to happen now than later on. So when I went for a check up I was resigned to the fact that I had probably lost it.

“But when she did the ultrasound she told me, ‘here you’ve got two’ – I said ‘no, that’s not possible’. She said, ‘yes, and I’m checking to see if there’s a third one!’ I just froze. Then when I saw them on the monitor I thought, ‘do I really have two babies inside me?’ At the time I was very slim. When my husband came home that night, I told him to sit down. He said ‘is something wrong?’ I said, ‘no, not only did we not lose the baby, but we’re going to have two!’ I think he must have spent the next 24 hours in a daze and speechless.”

The fraternal twins were born prematurely at seven months and were in an incubator for a week. “They were so tiny I was afraid to pick them up, and I had a lot of help from my mother and mother-in-law at the beginning. Then I decided I had better learn to cope on my own. Thank God, they recovered very quickly after that and started to grow at a fast rate. The nights were difficult, because just as one would go to sleep, the other would wake up – I never slept. I haven’t recovered to this day; I still don’t sleep a lot. On the plus side, it’s nice to see them growing up together.”

Of course, the most common remark Louise has heard ever since is that she’s lucky because she had two babies at one go (hlist f’darba).

“But that also means that your expenses are always double!” she points out.

Ironically, Louise has turned out to be even stricter with her children than her own parents were. Knowing what it’s like to grow up with an absent father, she tries to always be there for her boys, and only chooses TV programmes which fit into their schedule.

“I suffer from a lot of guilt and am very over-protective. Since having children I’ve become a bit of a hypochondriac – if they have a bruise I become obsessive. I’m very tough on them about school as well. If they get 79 instead of 80, for example, I get angry because I know they can do better.”

When the two boys were interviewed on Xarabank about what Louise’s hobbies are they said: “She likes washing the floors, sweeping and cleaning”.

“Well, it’s true that’s all they see me doing but they could have said something else. People still mention it to me,” Louise adds, laughing.

Although it meant getting up at 4am, the breakfast show she presented with Hector was the ideal format for her. Her husband Peter would get the kids ready for school and by 9.30am she’d be back home so she could get on with her housework and the children would find her there after school.

Does your husband mind being referred to as “Louise Tedesco’s husband”?

“No not at all, he’s very easy-going, nothing bothers him,” she smiles fondly.

As for being recognised everywhere she goes, she doesn’t mind that either.

“However, I only wear all that make-up for TV, so sometimes people say to me: ‘Are you sure you’re Louise? You look so different!’ and I have to reassure them that it’s really me. Some people look you up and down to see what you’re wearing. I suppose they imagine I’m lying around at home all day with servants doing everything for me, like they have abroad. That’s definitely not the case.”

She loves live programmes where people phone in to share what they’re doing. “They tell us what they’re cooking for dinner; one woman told us she had broken her leg – it’s like we’re part of their family. That gives me great satisfaction. When I read the news I have to be very serious, so people used to think that I was stuck-up – it was only through the live programmes that they saw my true character.”

Because she is so upfront herself, she is always surprised when someone deliberately hurts her. Hypocrisy is something she cannot tolerate. This, she says, has made her wary about trusting too easily and she has learnt to be on her guard.

At this point, the waitress brings our order. Here the cuisine is Mediterranean, with seafood and grilled fish being one of their specialities. I had octopus salad, with fresh rucola while Louise had spaghetti alle vongole.

As we eat, the topic turns to sports.

With a father so involved with a football team, it seemed inevitable that Louise too would love the game. She is as conversant and knowledgeable about football as any diehard supporter and would often go to watch the matches. This meant she was a natural choice to co-present a sports programme, making her one of the first women to do so.

“I’m not presumptuous and I wouldn’t have accepted unless I felt confident in the subject. If I am in doubt, I just won’t say anything, because I’m aware of my limitations. That’s why I wouldn’t agree to do a discussion programme, because I know I don’t have time to do the required research.”

Reading the news also requires very different skills to the light-hearted programmes she usually presents. With a shudder she remembers one of her worse TV mistakes when she was still on Xandir Malta.

“When Carmen Spiteri resigned, I inadvertently said Carmen Sant, not once but three times! They were waving and showing me cards to correct my mistake and I didn’t even know I had said it. I couldn’t understand what they were on about! I think that must have been my worse experience on air. When they told me, I couldn’t believe it. After the news I had to go back on air to apologise and correct the mistake. You can imagine the tension, especially in those days.”

Louise had a chance to see what a big production was like when she co-presented Giochi senza Frontiere.

“There was Italian presenter, Simona Tagli, as well, and she had about 20 people running around doing her hair and make-up, plus she had someone coaching her on what she should say. It took her about 10 takes before she got it right, so in comparison, with our limited resources and considering that Maltese presenters do everything ourselves, I think we do pretty well.”

Louise will definitely be back on our screens in October, but the project she is most looking forward to involves her other love, fashion.

“My sister has a shop and I’m going to take part of it to sell my own line of clothes. It has always been my dream, even though these days I can’t wear what I like any more!

“Lately people have been asking me if I’m pregnant. I know I’m not as thin as I used to be, but the camera really puts on weight especially if they film you from a certain angle. I look three times as big as I really am and if they show me in close-up I think: “My God, my face took up the whole screen!’ I think you have to be a size six to look good,” she sighs.