Vanessa Feltz joked she would like her ashes sprinkled all over Brent Cross shopping centre as she returned to celebrate its 40th birthday.

The radio and television broadcaster, known for her gags, returned to the UK’s first American style mall in Prince Charles Drive to cut the ribbon on a replica animal installation.

“Here is my true spiritual home,” she said, a visitor since the centre opened in 1976 when she was just 14-years-old.

“It was so glamorous, it was so dazzling, of course I came here, you couldn’t drag me out of the place.”

She added: “It played a huge part in my life. For loads of us it was the first place we could go on our own without grown ups. You could go on the bus and your parents wouldn’t worry about you.

“You’d wander about, you’d wish you had money, you would look at the things you would have bought if you could have afforded it, you’d have a Danish pastry at Lindy’s and come home again.”

In her early days as a stand up comedian having to make an impression, she knew just the place to go a shop called Faimans where she bought “the most marvellous sequin jacket”.

At the celebration she unveiled a replica of the wooden horse, caterpillar and turtle that was at the centre for 20 years.

Chanting ‘bring back the fountain’ which was also where shoppers used to gather, she said: “I used to bring my two little girls and of course they fell off the horse on numerous occasions. It was part of the fun of coming to Brent Cross.”

Still unable to resist a joke she said: “When the time comes I’d like to be cremated and my ashes sprinkled all over Brent Cross then at least I know my children will come and visit me!”