Emmerdale star Lisa Riley can’t stop thinking about her late mum ahead of her I’m A Celebrity stint.

Assigned a 24 hour chaperone to look after her since she landed earlier this week in Queensland, Australia, the subject of Cath is constantly on her mind.

For Lisa, it has been oddly comforting to be so far from home yet so close to those memories.

“It’s been lovely just talking about my mum and how proud she would be,” she admitted.

“I can’t help feel that maybe it is my mum in heaven giving me a message to do the show.

“She would be saying: ‘go on, knock them dead and just have a laugh.’”

The pair were incredibly close and spoke at least 10 times a day on the phone before Cath died from breast cancer that spread to her pelvis, ovaries and pancreas in 2012.

She was just 57 and the loss remains raw for Lisa.

“While my mum would be gleaming at the prospect of me doing the jungle, I can also imagine her sat there at nine o’clock in front of the TV, being frantically worried about me,” she said.

“But she knows that I am a very headstrong person.”

Her confidence comes from three decades in the industry, building a career across Emmerdale, Waterloo Road, Three Girls and a memorable run on Strictly.

She knows the jungle is a different kind of challenge but she is backing herself.

“I have been in this industry since I was 13 years old and I am 49 and, you know, I have never been out of work. And I think as a woman, to say that if I can last this long in a very strong industry, I should be able to cope in the Australian jungle.”

Another person who immediately came to mind when she agreed to the show was her best friend Robin Windsor, her best friend and Strictly dance partner who died last year aged 44.

His absence is another ache she carries.

“Robin always wanted to do the show, and he thought I was crazy to have said no after all these years,” she said.

“He would be like ‘you’d be f****** hilarious.’

“I know he is definitely on my shoulder, he will be gleaming with pride. He will just want me to be myself, and the best friend that I was for him.”

Lisa grew up in Bury, Gtr Manchester, and now lives in Yorkshire with musician fiancé Al.

They became engaged seven years ago although she has previously said they are unlikely to marry.

She said: “The very last thing he said was: ’Just be you.’ But then the other thing he did say, when I was on my own, was, ’good God, you are going to be having a lot of beans.’

“Think Celia Imrie (in Traitors) and you will put two and two together. People are going to be very privy to my gas. But it is the girl he loves and I love him.”

Lisa doesn’t care that viewers will see her barefaced without make-up, with humidity-frazzled hair.

“I love looking raw on TV… look at me in Three Girls or Waterloo Road. I am not a vain actress. And if anything, I am the other way.

“So when people are like, ’Oh my God, you are not going to have any fake lashes on,’ and my hair is going to look like a frizz bomb, I don’t care.

“People will see that I am going to look like an absolute minger, and I will embrace that, because that is the truth of it.”

Stripping off in camp will also not be a problem.

Lisa said: “I am very body positive.

“The way I look in a bathing suit is not like how other people might look in a bathing suit, but I am so comfortable in my own skin. And I think people will hopefully see that as even more how authentic I am. You know, I have got things that wobble and I like those bits.”

Asked what could rile her in camp, she said: “I cannot stand people that are disloyal.“Loyalty runs through my bones. You would see Mandy Dingle come out then, my full Dingle would come to the forefront.”