Iconic Blue Peter presenter Sarah Greene has admitted she struggled following a series of personal tragedies. The 68-year-old television presenter is currently very much in love and enjoying a huge career resurgence thanks to her role hosting the hit BBC game show The Finish Line alongside Roman Kemp. The quick-fire quiz has proved such a success since its launch two years ago that it's been granted a week of Christmas specials this year, which kick off on December 15.

However, this all comes after a difficult period in her life in which she suffered the deaths of the three people closest to her. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk she said: "I had possibly the worst three to four years of my life, losing my mum and then my dad and then my husband." Her beloved mother, actress Marjie Lawrence, died in 2010 aged 78 of ovarian cancer. Her father, TV DIY expert Harry Greene, collapsed and died in 2013, at the age of 89, after returning from a holiday with Sarah and her husband, fellow TV presenter and businessman Mike Smith.

That would be enough sadness for most people to endure in a short period, but just 17 months later, Smith, to whom Sarah had been married for 25 years since 1989, died aged 59 from complications following major heart surgery.

"It's unreal, it's a strange, surreal, visceral, hurting, sadness, it's all of those things," she recalls of the grief she felt."I don't speak for everybody. I can only speak from my own experience on this. But I felt like an emotional punching bag. It almost felt like when a boxer gets punched, falls down, gets up and spins, and then falls back over again," she confesses.

Sarah's mother, who famously spoke the first ever words uttered on ITV, died just three weeks after learning she had ovarian cancer, having waited 10 months for a diagnosis, a fatal delay that compounded Sarah's grief.

"She was sent away [by her GP] with thoughts that she had irritable bowel syndrome or something multi-factorial - that umbrella term," she recalls. "It got to the stage where I took her to an appointment to see a heart specialist, and he was the only one who examined her properly. He took me aside and said, 'Your mother needs to go to the hospital and see a cancer specialist'.

"Within 24 hours, doctors had diagnosed her with a large mass that was ovarian and malignant. If we had known the five most common symptoms... if her GP had known them, there is a chance that mum would still be with us today. She would have certainly had another 10 years with us."

Sarah found strength by forming a close association with Target Ovarian Cancer, a charity working to find new treatments and provide support for those affected by the disease. It also develops early diagnosis toolkits for healthcare professionals to spot the symptoms of cancer. "I'm very happy to say that the reach of Target Ovarian Cancer's online training for GPs in 2010 was 26% and is now 51%," she says proudly.

"It's nowhere near 100% and I know that GPs are under so much pressure. But awareness is so important. Eleven women a day are dying of ovarian cancer. If we can detect this early, 95% of those will survive. It is no longer a silent killer, but awareness has to be raised," she said.

Target Ovarian Cancer is one of the charities supported in this year's Big Give's Christmas Challenge, an online match-funding campaign that doubles donations and is now the UK's biggest fundraiser for good causes. It runs until December 9 and donations can be made here.