The Chase Australia's Anne Hegerty opens up on 7NEWS Spotlight ...

On Channel 7’s quiz show The Chase, Anne Hegerty is exactly what you’d expect from her English governess alter ego.

Impressive, strict, and I imagine even a little scary for the wannabe quizzers competing against them.

But little about the real Anne Hegerty is so conventional.

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“I’m actually quite an optimist. “I have the feeling that life is getting better and better,” the 65-year-old tells me.

“There are so many people my age who look back kind of nostalgically on earlier times and say, ‘Life was so much better in the good old days.’ And I look at her and think, “No, no, no.” “You think it was better because your joints didn’t hurt and everyone wanted to have sex with you,” she says.

(Did I mention she’s hilarious?)

“I didn’t have a particularly good childhood. The music was better, but to be honest there wasn’t much else that was better when I was a kid.”

On The Chase, Anne Hegerty is everything you would expect from her alter ego as an English governess. Credit: 7NEWS Spotlight

Curtis Mayfield’s 1970 hit “Move On Up” served as an inspirational soundtrack to some of Anne’s darker days.

The opening verse is apt:

“Hush now, child

And don’t cry

Your people may understand you

Bit by bit

Just keep going up

towards your goal

Although you may find it from time to time

Complication”

Anne’s childhood was indeed complicated.

Her undiagnosed autism led to her being seen as “weird and unhappy” by people who should have supported her.

“I just grew up feeling like I couldn’t really do anything. My mother never told me I could achieve anything.”

And even though Anne’s father encouraged her, people said he was wrong.

“My father was completely incompetent in all areas of life. So I grew up thinking, ‘I’m not really sure I can do anything, I’m not sure I can learn to do anything’.”

At the age of 12, Anne’s mother sent her to a child psychologist, after which she went to boarding school for the next five years. Credit: 7NEWS Spotlight

At the age of 12, Anne’s mother sent her to a child psychologist, after which she went to boarding school for the next five years.

For the now professional quizzer, being in the classroom was initially a challenge.

“I was so confused by everything that I basically did what I always do when I’m confused: I just stood there and did nothing.

“The grades came out and I was at the bottom of the class,” she explains.

These scores were published publicly.

Ashamed of being beaten and viewed as a “class idiot,” Anne lowered her head and soon climbed from the bottom to the top—a competitive streak that obviously continued.

But the deep scars from her childhood have never fully healed.

Years later, when her mother Shirley was dying, Anne rushed to be by her side.

Anne tells this deeply personal story for the first time, tearfully explaining how the little girl, who was then cruelly ignored, felt invisible again.

“I remember arriving at the train station and getting into my aunt’s car, my aunt tapping the steering wheel and saying, ‘Now listen to me.’ Listen to me. Shirley is very sick. She is really very sick. She could be dead by the time we get there.

“And I thought, ‘Yeah, could we, could we keep going?’ Would that be okay?'”

Anne’s aunt made her promise to do exactly as she was told and to leave the family home when asked.

She only spent 15 minutes with her unconscious mother.

“And then I had to go. Aunt Jill let me leave and go back to the hotel.”

A few days later her mother died and Anne received a letter from a relative.

“It basically said, ‘We’re so grateful you stayed away.’ If you had been here she would have died in chaos and confusion.’ I just remember looking at that letter and thinking, ‘That’s me. Apparently I’m bringing chaos and confusion.'”

It was, says Anne, the worst thing that has ever happened to her.

“Not so much that my mother died, but just the feeling of not being a person,” she says.

Anne’s aunt made her promise to do exactly as she was told and to leave the family home when asked. Credit: 7NEWS Spotlight

The feeling of being invisible was a theme in Anne Hegerty’s life for a long time.

Like more than 200,000 Australians, she lives with an autism spectrum disorder.

Anne was diagnosed at the age of 45 after coming across a television documentary about the developmental disorder.

“Something in that clicked for me,” she says.

“I looked at the actual diagnostic criteria and thought, ‘Oh my God,’ this brings together so many things that I did as a child or possibly still do that seemed to have no connection except that they were strange and inexplicable , and I made them and no one ever knew why.”

These days, structure is key to keeping your life on track.

Anne’s house is organized – very organized.

It’s designed to complement the way her brain works – a huge table in the dining room, divided into sections for arranging things, sits next to colorful boxes dedicated to different aspects of her work and travel.

Anne mentally writes down “a critical path” every day.

“It’ll be something like, ‘Okay, put your underpants on.’ Now put on your bra. Brush your teeth, then put your top on and then, right, you’re on top. Now you can pull back the curtains.’ I just plod through all these things that everything else can do absentmindedly,” she explains.

Anne was diagnosed at the age of 45 after coming across a television documentary about the developmental disorder. Credit: 7NEWS Spotlight

What Anne does absentmindedly (and phenomenally well) is take a quiz.

She turned this skill into a career in 2010, first on the British ITV quiz show The Chase, before joining the Seven Network version five years later.

“I always felt like I had a brain like a Rolodex. If I know it, then it’s there.”

It’s a job that changed her life; From financial debt and emotional turmoil to fame and fulfillment.

“There’s one thing I can do, and it turns out people would love to watch me do it and even pay me to do it, and that gives you a little more confidence,” she tells me.

She is humble, but Anne Hegerty has also become a role model for people with autism.

“A lot of people are really excited that there’s a famous autistic person out there who’s soft-spoken, has a damn well-paying job, gets along well and goes to parties and so on.

“I think it makes people happy, so to speak, to see that I’m dealing with it,” she says.

After spending time with the wonderful Anne Hegerty?

I would say the last verse of Move On Up sums it up perfectly.

“Don’t take anything less

As the highest best

Don’t obey the rumors people say

Because you can pass the test

Just keep going up

Here’s to a bigger day

With just a little faith if you decide to do it

I’m sure you can do it.”

Watch 7NEWS Spotlight: The Governess’ Secrets on 7plus.