Can you tell it's our Mel?

Avis Hyland, 57, told the Adver that she was completely fooled when celebrity mother-of-three Melinda was transformed by make-up artists into a pensioner called Margaret Doyle.

Producers of the Channel Five show Age Swap fooled Avis into thinking they were making a programme about Melinda's past and convinced her that Margaret was the piano player from her childhood ballet lessons.

And so convincing was Melinda's disguise that her mum didn't suspect a thing.

Avis, who lives in Liden and works for Arc Electronics, Melinda's husband Wayne's Old Town company, said: "I just couldn't take it in at all.

"I kept having to feel her face and her hair so I could convince myself it was a disguise.

"It was just the most bizarre thing.

"Even her own children didn't recognise her.

"Her son Morgan just looked at her and said 'it's a horrible lady.'

"It wasn't just the make-up, it was the way she was carrying herself.

"She had all the movements of an elderly lady down to a tee.

"And she wasn't a sweet old lady at all, she was quite intimidating."

Wayne was the one who persuaded Avis to take part in what she thought was a nostalgia programme.

But Avis said that even he was alarmed by the authentic look of Melinda's disguise.

"Wayne told me that it was all a big surprise for Melinda and that it would be a real shame if I didn't take part.

"It was filmed in March in their old house in Lower Wanborough.

"At the time Melinda kept coming up and trying to kiss him and saying 'come here young man.'

"He was looking very wary about kissing her.

"She was so bizarre and eccentric that I was concerned that the production company was taking advantage of her."

But Avis does not think that Swindon-born Melinda, who is mum to Morgan, four, two-year-old Flynn, and ten-month-old Evie, will turn out anything like Margaret Doyle in her old age.

"I think that Melinda will be eccentric but she won't be that sort of old lady."

Age Swap will be broadcast on Friday November 5 at 10pm.