Curator Caroline Worthington took her TV researcher sister, Linda Lyons, to an art exhibition and then, very reluctantly, accompanied her to a gym
  • The Guardian,

Linda: My sister Caroline and I have always been very different. She's the classic older sister - she's two years, two months and two days older than me. She's always been driven, whereas I was much more ready to take things as they came. I fell into TV by accident; but it's gone very well so far. My job at Five is to understand how our viewers are connecting with the channel and to feed this back to both programming and marketing. You need to be pretty diplomatic and tactful - the sort of thing that Caroline isn't always so good at. She tends to be more direct.

Caroline and I went to different schools and had our own sets of friends until we were in our 20s when we started to become much closer. I studied business but she was the first one of us to go to university, and then went on to do an MA. We always say she must have got the creative gene from an uncle we have in Australia because none of the rest of us have a clue about art apart from him.

I think Caroline would say I'm not interested in art, but the trouble is that none of the rest of the family really understands it. She's a curator at York Art Gallery and when we go to her private views she doesn't have time to talk us through everything, and like any family, we tend to hear all the moans and groans about the exhibitions she is putting together. For example, she'll be saying: "So and so has just gone on at me because they hate the colour of that wall" and we'll be looking and thinking, "Oh yes, there's the wall, hmm, lovely". I was looking forward to going round the Degas, Sickert, Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition because I thought she would be able to explain it to me, which she can't do when she's working.

My first impression was that the show was really jam-packed and it was very hot, so I was beginning to go off the idea. But Caroline started talking to me about the paintings, and got me to discuss the labels and we started talking about the reasons the curators had put certain pictures near each other. I started to find it much more interesting.

I liked the ballerinas Degas painted the most, I could relate to their excitement and nervousness as they were getting ready to go on stage. I enjoyed dancing when I was younger - Caroline and I both danced - I did tap, modern and ballet. If I ever have time I would love to do more dance: I do make an effort to keep fit. The last room was really depressing, there were two paintings - Degas's The Interior and Sickert's Ennui - which made for a dismal finish. But it made me realise, going round with my sister, how little galleries manage to explain things to people like me who don't know loads. They just don't give you enough information. I would go to an art show again but I'd want to have Caroline there to explain it to me.

Caroline: Like a lot of sisters we've had a funny relationship, there were times when we were really close and times when it was a complete battle. Now we get on really well, although we are interested in completely different things.

When we were young, being the older, I was the leader of the pack but now it's Linda. She's much more feisty than I am, and she's incredibly successful: she's business-savvy and practical, and knows how to earn a good living, unlike me.

Linda likes music and dance, she still plays the piano at home, and she's come to an occasional private view, but she doesn't enjoy it - she didn't come to the show I did at the National Gallery, for example. That show was a big deal to me, I was only 30 and it isn't often you have something on there. I envy her being so near central London and having all that art on her doorstep - which she doesn't go to, of course.

I think Linda, like a lot of people, doesn't feel comfortable in that environment. Taking her to the Tate made me realise how big the gap is between what we think we do as curators and how the public see it. I enjoyed going with her because I had to work harder than if I'm just going for pleasure.

The gym was an entirely different thing, in fact I began to understand how Linda feels at a gallery. I've always hated exercise and the fact that my sister likes it and so does my partner - he's a runner and gets up every day at 6.30am - doesn't matter. My partner says he likes thinking while he runs, well, I say you can think perfectly well sitting in a nice, comfy chair, thanks. I suspect it goes back to my school: we had an outdoor swimming pool and I still remember the horror of it all.

So we walk into this incredibly swish Chelsea gym and everyone was really thin, really groomed and beautifully made-up. It was like walking onto the set of Nip/Tuck. I was in some ancient tracky bottoms and she had on very smart kit of course. Fortunately the trainer was nice, I did a lot of yoga and pilates and I managed 15 minutes on the bike, but I can't say I felt the euphoria people describe. Perhaps I need to do more to get that, but that's not going to happen. It is one thing having a day out with Linda, but quite another on my own at 7.30 on a wet November evening.

· Caroline and Linda went to Degas, Sickert, Toulouse-Lautrec at Tate Britain (, until January 15, 2006), and Kx private members' club, Chelsea, London (

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