THE mellifluous voice on the other end of the phone transports me back to a 1970s childhood, to dirndl skirts, far too much polyester and to watching television where a woman in a red dress is reading funny poems in a thick, regional accent.

The moment she won Opportunity Knocks back in 1975, Pam Ayres became a national treasure.

Mention her name, 35 years down the line, and people will laugh and launch into I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth (“and spotted the perils beneath”) and inevitably ask, “I wonder if that accent is put on?”

The answer to that is no, although it is softer when she’s not in the public eye, but chatting about the words that made her name.

“I think people like my poems because I’m a close observer, and not embarrassed to talk about my failures. And very often they are failures that a lot of people have experience of,” she said.

“I think I have an antennae for certain situations that are very common, and I’m also incredibly lucky to have a husband who doesn’t mind me taking the mickey out of him.

“In fact, I can’t show my face without someone asking me to recite They Should Have Asked my Husband.”

They Should Have Asked my Husband is a glorious nine-stanza ode to a man with opinions on absolutely everything – opinions that he’s not at all afraid of airing, much to the despair of his loyal, but pushed-to-the-limit, wife.

Other popular verses are one about snoring (“that really seems to strike a chord”) and a gentle, moving musing about wanting to be buried in a wood rather than a “gloomy churchyard”.

“Ideally, I would rather be buried under my own trees at home, but that poem has really taken off.

“It seems to be read at people’s funerals, which I think is really lovely. It’s a really human poem, I think, and written in the right spirit.

“I wrote it from the heart, and it’s not the sort of poem that I would go about disclaiming, because it is so heartfelt and the sort of thing you would read to yourself.

“I included it in a book of poems and thought it would get lost among the others, but people found it and liked it.”

Pam will be giving these poems, and more, an airing at the Electric Palace in Bridport on September 9, a date that also marks the start of a week-long holiday with her husband Dudley.

“I love Dorset. When I was little we would come on day trips to Weymouth. My mother would plonk herself on the sand under the Jubilee Clock, so we would know where she was, while we ran off to play.

“This time, Dudley and I are going to be round Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. I love it and I shall bring my walking boots. It’s so beautiful.

“The Cotswolds are beautiful too, but they don’t have the sea, and I do love the briny stuff.”

The poetry of Pam Ayres is far superior to doggerel, though not held in the same academic esteem as that of, say, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

She touches on the things that affect us all, be they funny, embarrassing or downright irritating.

She is never harsh – her barbed pen sweetened with glorious drops of honeyed humour – and her wry observations are always spot on. She started writing because she wanted to be a performer but could never find other people’s material that matched her sense of humour.

The idea of being a national treasure does not seem to alarm her too much, although when she first found fame after winning Opportunity Knocks in 1975 she admits it had a “cataclysmic” effect on her life.

“Opportunity Knocks was the Britain’s Got Talent of its time, and had a huge following, and once I won it I was working full time and it made a big difference to me.

“But I was uncomfortable and like a fish out of water. I didn’t know who to trust.

“People who win Britain’s Got Talent these days are much better protected, but I felt very small and alone, somehow like a speck.

“The thing was, I didn’t know the value of what I had written, and there weren’t any good advisors around to help me deal with the next step.

“Luckily, I met my husband and we strode the path together.”

Dudley still works as Pam’s agent and they live what sounds like an idyllic existence on a smallholding in the Cotswolds where they breed from their 12 cows, and where Pam, in her spare time, enjoys painting, drawing cartoons and indulging her passion for intricate knitwear.

She is also currently writing her autobiography, which is due for publication towards the end of next year.

“I am completely immersed in writing it at the moment and enjoying it immensely.

“I don’t know how long I will have it for, but I have a good memory at the moment, so I want to use it while I can.

“I had an ordinary upbringing that I think will have been shared by many people just after the Second World War.

“We were a large, hard-up family – four brothers and a sister – and I think people will recognise our experiences.

“My family is being very helpful and long-suffering as I keep asking them for details that I can’t remember.

“I have always loved writing and it was a hobby that became a job. It was lovely to read my work and see people fall about laughing – and it is even lovelier that they are still falling about.”