Craig Phillips ('Big Brother 1')

Big Brother 10 kicks off in exactly one week's time and throughout the new series, DS will be catching up with the housemates from yesteryear. Each week we will hook up with a Big Brother legend to chat about their experiences in the house and find out what they're up to now. First up is the winner of the original series, Liverpudlian builder Craig Phillips, who won over the nation with his cheeky humour and infamous confrontation with 'Nasty' Nick Bateman. We caught up with Craig to find out if he's a still a BB fan.

Since you won Big Brother you've done TV shows, released a pop single, starred in panto and done various charity events. What's been your highlight?
"The TV side of things is great fun. I'm honoured to be able to work on it. Since Big Brother, I've done more than 800 different TV shows. The stuff I did with the British Forces Broadcasting Services, which was filmed around the world with soldiers, stands outs for me from most makeover shows that I've done. That was more special."

Looking back at your time on Big Brother, what are your strongest memories?
"At the start, I was pretty quiet in the house. I had been so busy running my building company before going in that I viewed the show as a holiday. There was a brief high walking through the door, because I felt like a winner getting on the show. I only got told that I was going in the house six days before it started and I was aware 45,000 people applied for the show. When you get told that you are one of those ten people, I felt like a winner from the start. I was quite pleased with myself."

Do any events stick out in your head?
"I had lots of ups and downs in the house and you learn lots about yourself. There's not many people who have been in that social environment. To lose your wallet, your keys, your phone and have all your everyday responsibilities taken away from you, it's a really testing experience. Left alone, being put in there with people you wouldn't normally spend time with. We had ups and downs, I clashed with people. Obviously, there was the Nick Bateman scenario, but I feel like I actually missed out on that. All my friends and millions of the public have told me they were glued to the telly when it came on. Whatever feedback I get from the public, they say that was the turning point and won me their votes."

What was your personal highlight during your time in the house?
"Obviously the main highlight was being told that I had won. At the end I was at exploding point. I just wanted to get out of the house. I really needed to get out of that house. When I was told that I had won it felt fantastic for a moment, but then I got taken to the diary room and told I would have to wait an hour and a half for Davina. I thought 'God, I want out. I've already been here for 1,000 hours'. The house was a right mess by the end as well. My mum would have killed me if she'd seen it."

Do you think the show will come to an end at some point soon? Viewing figures seem to be heading downwards...
"I still watch the programme because I still do articles about the people in the house most years. Although people love to hate it and slag it off, I think the decline in viewers is overplayed. These days there are so many ways of watching the show. It's on 24 hours a day, there's all the spin-off shows, you can watch it on E4, E4+1 and online. I think if you put all those together, you'd realise that the viewing figures are pretty much the same as the early series."

You are releasing an autobiography this summer. Whose idea was that?
"I've been asked to do an autobiography on numerous occasions. When I first came out of the Big Brother house, they offered me the chance, but I said, 'Let's leave it until I've actually got more to talk about'. Then for the last nine years, I've struggled to find time to do it. But over the last six months on-and-off I've got down to it and it's taken up most of my time. After however many live performances, TV shows and weird and wonderful things, I've now got enough to talk about. The hardest thing was actually selecting things. But I've found the whole process quite therapeutic - to sit down and analyse what's happened to me since Big Brother."

You're also working on a new DIY project with askjeeves. What's that about?
"It's for a new DIY feature on their website. It's designed so when people have any questions they can go on askjeeves and find out the answers. I'm personally always getting lots of questions about DIY and this is a new way of giving out tips and shortcuts for beginners. Today, I've been doing video clips for the site and they should be up on the site soon. It's to help with really common basic stuff like hanging pictures on the wall, where people just need a guiding hand. It's stuff people can do at home and just need to be shown once."