Born Famous:

Michelle Mone

Channel 4, last night ***

THERE was a helpline number given at the end of this Channel 4 documentary featuring Michelle Mone’s daughter taking a walk down mum’s memory lane. It was not specified what kind of support was offered, but a team of counsellors specially trained in treating Glaswegians feeling patronised would have done a roaring trade.

But then, as the film showed, the locals are more resilient than that. The ability to keep going when the going gets tough is what this four-part series is meant to be about. Made by Studio Ramsay, Gordon Ramsay’s production company, it has thus far featured his son, Jack, and Phoenix Chi, daughter or Spice Girl Mel B. Last night it was the turn of Bethany Mone, 19, to stay for a week in her mum’s old stomping ground of the Gallowgate (or as it said in the Radio Times, “Galloway”).

READ MORE: Michelle Mone too 'mega busy in Silicon Valley' to deal with complaints

Yes, that’s right, a whole seven days. As a sociological experiment, Born Famous carries about as much weight as a wet paper bag, but it does have insights to offer, even if they are not the ones the famous parents intended to air.

The programme began with an exchange between mum and daughter setting out how each viewed their lots, past and present. “I don’t think you realise how much of a struggle it was,” entrepreneur and baroness Michelle told her girl. “I wish you could see the kind of struggle I have to grow up,” countered the teenager. “Bethany, come on,” sighed mum.

With that Bethany headed for the east end of Glasgow all the way from her home in the west end, via a stop off in the Isle of Man to see mum. The viewer might have feared for her given mum’s recollection of the place as “horrific” and “infested with rats”, but as it turned out she was billeted with the similarly aged Jack and his parents in their small but nicely done out house. “I’m sure you won’t get lost,” said Jack, showing her around.

Jack could no longer work in his building trade job due to health problems. His mum, suffering from a crumbling pelvis, had not been able to climb the stairs to her bedroom for three years and had to sleep on the couch. The family could scarcely have given Bethany a warmer welcome, and she responded in kind. Like Jack Ramsay before her she seemed a fundamentally good kid with the usual insecurities that go with the age, albeit with a bigger family bank balance behind her.

She spoke of the pain caused by her parents’ public divorce, how she missed her hard-working mum growing up, and that today she only sees her mother “a handful of times” a year. But she was clearly proud of her and ready to stick up for her too. “They think my mum doesn’t like Scotland because she moved,” she said of her mother’s Scots critics, “but that’s not the case.”

It would not be a programme set in Glasgow without a trip to a fast-food outlet to buy a “munchie box” full of enough saturated fat to fell a village of Vikings, and there was ye olde encounter with locals who objected to cameras filming them while they were drinking alfresco. “Get tae ****,” one advised Bethany and her new pals.

We saw the bungalow where mum had lived, and there was an interview with the owner of Coia’s who regretted there were not more local businesses where youngsters could get a start, as young Michelle Mone had. By the end, Bethany said she did not want to leave. “I learned a lot about family,” she said, “She’s a credit to you,” Jack’s mum told Michelle when she came to collect her. What Bethany seemed to have learned from her brief east end sojourn was that she had missed her mum and wanted to see more of her, while mum acknowledged there had been “disconnect” between them.

READ MORE: Michelle Mone announces her engagement to billionaire boyfriend 

What had the east end learned? Absolutely naff all, other than a documentary crew in search of cliches will always find them.

Repeated today 12.10am, 4seven and Wednesday 12.05am, and on All 4