OVER the next nine weeks, millions of TV viewers will allow 12 strangers into their living rooms as Big Brother returns for a third series. But what is it like from the other side? Bolton girl Nichola Holt was one of the original housemates and spent five weeks "inside" in 2000, before being voted off. Here, in an exclusive report, she gives her first hand account.

'I DON'T particularly like talking about Big Brother. It definitely changed my life and made me a different person but sometimes you feel it's time to move on.

Every time a new series of the programme appears on television I just end up being sucked in again. Life is going around in circles. And sometimes you want it to go away.

Yet I can see the charm of the show and I will not pull it apart. For me and the other eight contestants, Big Brother was something new.

We went into it because we wanted something from it. I was keen to enter the world of fashion and I wanted to show people I could create things.

In hindsight, maybe I was mad but I don't regret going into the house because it was a real experience.

While I was ithere, I certainly felt as if I couldn't express myself fully.

It has changed me. I left the house and analysed myself, looking at my behaviour and the way I was with others.

A lot of the things we did, we did because we were bored.

This time around the housemates are not allowed to take any musical instruments or books with them so it is bound to be worse.

From the moment you wake up, half-sleepy, you are aware the cameras are on you.

Coming out of the house was mad. People would offer me £4,000 for a 10-minute personal appearance.

People need to realise I'm not the mouthy Northerner that viewers have seen on TV.

I would warn anybody going into Big Brother to realise that the producers will pick up on a character trait and then play on it throughout the whole series.

Looking back, I would have done things differently. I would have told everybody exactly what I thought of them.

But I can't complain too much because I made £60,000 after the show and that kept me going for more than a year.

Yet sometimes the media attention I still attract can have a negative affect on relationships.

My parents have been upset with some of the newspaper reports but I guess Big Brother was more than a television show.

It dominated the agendas of magazines and newspapers. I didn't know how big the whole thing was going to be.

But now I'm living with my boyfriend, Peter, in Hertfordshire again.

I will always be Nichola from Big Brother but I want to be Nichola from Bolton, somebody who is respected and well-known for what I do, not for what TV show I appeared on.

Ultimately, the work fizzles out.

I'm now content to work on my fashion designs. I'm even looking after a little boy for a neighbour for a few hours each day -- hardly glamourous but what I want.