GMTV star Fiona Phillips is planning to quit her early morning television show and leave Britain to live in an Italian village.

The former pupil at Millbrook Community School, who grew up in the city, wants to leave the GMTV breakfast slot when her £1.5m contract comes to an end in 2006.

Fiona said she had been inspired to seek a new life in Tuscany after watching the Channel 4 series No Going Back, which follows British families starting new lives abroad.

The 42-year-old presenter is married to the programme's editor Martin Frizzell and they have two sons Nathaniel, four, and 18-month-old Mackenzie.

In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, Fiona said: "I'll be 45 by the end of my new contract and in my tenth year at GMTV, which is quite amazing. I never thought I was going to be here so long.

"Ultimately I see what I do as a job and I want to give 100 per cent to it. But now I'm finding it harder because I want to give 100 per cent to my family and my husband.

"I can see myself in a Tuscan farmhouse writing, with a clapped-out Land Rover outside and the children skipping around in a field. That's what I really want."