As one of the regulars on lunchtime TV chat show Loose Women, cruise ship singer Jane McDonald is like everyone’s best friend.

When she visited the Wednesbury Mecca bingo centre yesterday she was hugging people, singing to them, and they were talking to her like they had known her for years. She was in town to hand out the awards in Mecca’s ‘best buddy’ competition.

Sisters Sarah Bartin and Hayley Ware from Exeter were awarded the top prize of a trip to New York after revealing how they had helped each other through cancer and painful medical treatment.

Representing the home team were Kathleen and Lynn Jones, a mother and daughter-in-law from Hydes Road, Wednesbury, whose 26-year love of the game has seen them through illness and the death of Kathleen’s husband a few years ago.

Jane is famously candid about all aspects of her life on the ITV show. “We have absolutely no secrets on that show,” she said. “I’m always saying too much and afterwards I’ll think ‘oh no, what have I done’.”

Jane became a household name after she starred in The Cruise, the reality television programme which followed her early years.