She read Geography at Hertford College, Oxford, where she earned a first class MA in 1990,[5] despite contracting viral encephalitis in her second year which caused an almost fatal swelling of her brain.
[7] After graduating, Collingridge moved immediately to a career in television, first as a question checker on game shows Wheel of Fortune and Win, Lose or Draw, and then for 14 months as a weathergirl on BBC Scotland.
[5] In 2000 she quit her job as a television presenter on Tonight with Trevor McDonald to author two biographies, one of 18th-century explorer James Cook and one of Celtic warrior queen Boudica.
Certainly, I cannot remember a time when I wasn't acutely aware of the inherently political nature of woman's position in society and – much to my father's disgust and my now extreme embarrassment – by the grand old age of twelve, I would proudly read Cosmopolitan magazine and proclaim myself a feminist!
[12] Collingridge has lived in Scotland since 1989, and resides in a converted farmhouse on the shore of Castle Semple Loch near Lochwinnoch with her husband Alan Watt, and sons Archie, Angus, Finn and Dougal.