Since winning Opportunity Knocks in 1975, Pam Ayres has become a much-loved part of English light entertainment. As a writer, poet and comedian, she has the knack of making an ordinary occurrence screamingly funny or equally poignant and her audience spans all ages. People warm to her wry take on life, her country burr and friendly, unpretentious manner. Even small boys love her. When my friend's small son, Boris, saw her on breakfast television recently, he toddled up and kissed her face.

"That's a first, most definitely a first," she exclaims when I tell her. "There are older people who remember me from Opportunity Knocks and then there's the Radio 4 audience who have enjoyed Ayres On the Air, the series I've done, and then there are quite a lot of children who come or are brought because they've done I Wish I'd Looked After me Teeth or The Dolly and the Dustcart in speech and poetry competitions - and there, the 17-month-old baby. That is a new one."

Surgically Enhanced, her first collection of prose and poetry in ten years, should widen her appeal further. Some of the pieces are from her stage show, but quite a few are new, such as The Battle of Portaloo and I'm Going To Be Surgically Enhanced. All are inspired by her everyday life.

They Should Have Asked My Husband and Reading The Map feature her husband, the concert agent and theatre producer Dudley Russell. In the first, he is portrayed as the kind of know-it-all who could solve the country's problems in a second, while in the second - well, let's just say many women will smile and nod ruefully when they read it.

Both pieces are laugh-out-loud funny, but with rather a bite to them, so I asked Pam how he feels about being used as material. "He's got used to being fair game really. He's a very confident man, so it doesn't bother him what I say about him. He knows it's not true. It's just a script," she said. "He always laughs and says he's looking for a good divorce lawyer."

In another piece, The Downhill Skier, Pam recounts a disastrous skiing holiday complete with bullying instructor. "That ski instructor was so horrible to me and made me feel like a complete nothing," she said. "It took me a while to get the right view of that so I could write about it, because I just cringed with embarrassment for ages afterwards."

However, she thinks that including such material is one of the reasons why her audiences don't see her so much as "a performer", but rather as someone they've just had a nice natter with. "People have been in similar situations and they warm to you, because they know I'm telling the truth."

Pam grew up in Stanford in the Vale and she talks about what seems like an idyllic childhood in the chapter Growing Up. Was it really so wonderful?

"I didn't realise I'd made it as wonderful as everybody says it sounds," she answers. "That's what it was like. I never thought, this is an idyllic childhood, you don't, but looking back I'm glad it was the one I had."

Stanford was actually in Berkshire when she grew up. "I remember we were all most indignant that we were no longer Berkshire people, but suddenly overnight had become Oxfordshire people," she says. So she's never really felt like an Oxfordshire lass then?

"I'm a Vale of the White Horse person," she states proudly. "That's where I was brought up - in the Vale - and that's where I like to tell people I'm from."

Is that where she began to practise becoming Pam Ayres, the stage comedienne and poet?

"I did seek out places where you could perform, more than perform in my everyday life," she replies. "What I tried to do was find places where it was acceptable to do that. I joined the Faringdon Little Theatre Group and various folk groups where you could get up and perform and sing."

Like most performers from that era, her overnight success was preceded by years of honing her very distinct writing and stage act, but soon after her Opportunity Knocks appearance at the age of 29, she turned professional and has never looked back.

She reined back her career while her two sons were growing up, but now that they're in their 20s, she is firing on all cylinders at the age of 59.

"I've no plans to retire, because looking out for things to write about is such a part of me. I couldn't imagine that I would stop doing it and as long as I'm writing things I'm pleased with, I want to perform them, so I've got absolutely no plans to retire." Young Boris is not the only one who will be very pleased.

*Surgically Enhanced is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £14.99.