Andy Burnham looks like being chosen by Labour MPs to become Britain's new Prime Minister in what has been dubbed a 'coronation' for the so-called 'King of the North' - but his own queen once made an ill-fated pick on TV's Blind Date.The newly elected Makerfield MP was accompanied at his by-election triumph last week by his wife of 26 years Marie-France van Heel, known to friends as Frankie.The couple, both 56, have two sons and a daughter, having first met as students at Cambridge University in 1989 - bonded by a shared love of indie band the Smiths. But their early romance had to overcome one unusual hurdle, when Frankie asked her boyfriend whether she could appear on ITV show Blind Date in January 1992 - leading to a distastrous Gibraltar trip and her potential match calling her a 'cold fish'.Mr Burnham had agreed to the televised appearance, though later told of watching the primetime Saturday night episode worriedly 'watching through my fingers' and from behind the sofa.Dutch-born marketing executive Frankie was a social and political sciences student at the time, while Mr Burnham was doing an English degree.She has subsequently revealed how her decision to go on the show was part of earlier plans to become a children's television presenter. She said in an interview on ex-employer Heavenly's website: 'I thought that appearing on a TV dating show might raise my profile and help my career – 20 years of intermittent mickey-taking was the result but I’m happy to embrace my 15m of fame/shame!' Andy Burnham's then-girlfriend, now wife, Marie-France van Heel - known to friends as Frankie - appeared in January 1992 on ITV show Blind Date, hosted by Cilla Black Dutch-born marketing executive Marie-France van Heel has been wed to Mr Burnham since 2000 - they are seen at Ashton Town FC last Friday after his Makerfield by-election win Mr Burnham met his future wife at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam College in 1989, when he was studying English and she social and political sciencesFrankie sat on one side of the Blind Date barrier familiar to millions tuning in and was given the chance to ask three men on the other side a set of questions.Viewers heard how she captained Fitzwilliam College's women's football team and fancied actor Matt Dillon, star of films such as Drugstore Cowboy, There's Something About Mary and Crash. She went on to choose a contestant described only as Will from Surrey, who was clad in a red sweatshirt and blue dungarees. His answers included offering up a rhyme in her honour, when answering her question about what he did in the shower by saying: 'I generally make up poems and short stories.'He followed up by attempting to woo her with: 'Oh, Frankie, oh, Frankie - your name is quite cranky. Pick me for your Blind Date, and there'll be no hanky-panky.'She then asked the three men: 'What would you do if you were my first taste of British men?'Will told her in response: 'You give me half an hour and I’ll give you the best time of your life.'Frankie went on to choose him and they were sent on a date to Gibraltar - only for things to go wrong from there. Frankie sat on one side of the Blind Date barrier familiar to millions tuning in and was given the chance to ask three men on the other side a set of questions 'Will from Surrey' - future Conservative Party marketing director Will Harris - wore a red sweater and blue dungarees as he sat in the middle of his fellow contestants Frankie and Will were told by Cilla Black they would go on a dating trip to Gibraltar - although both agreed on the following week's show that it had not gone wellThe following week, the pair returned to update Blind Date's host and viewers on how they fared - with both making it clear they were not meant to be.Will labelled her a 'cold fish', prompting Frankie to hurl a cushion at him.He later remembered, in an interview with the Daily Mail: 'The end of the programme was awful.'We left the show and went back stage and she said to me: "F*** off, I never want to see you again."'Yet the pair have since bumped into each other again - including once in a House of Commons bar in 2003 - with Will Harris then employed as marketing director for the Conservative Party, under leader Michael Howard.Frankie was by then married to Mr Burnham, who had been elected as MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester two years earlier.Mr Harris recalled: 'She was there with Andy. We are on different sides of the political spectrum. We have totally different views about things but we have this common interest from all those years ago.'If we ran into each other now we would have a really nice chat.'Mr and Mrs Burnham are seen alongside their daughter Rosie after he won last Thursday's Makerfield by-election The pair are pictured after he was previously re-elected for Leigh at the 2010 general election Andy Burnham returned to the Commons in triumph on Monday after a nine-year absence - posing for a selfie with gathered Labour MPs ahead of his expected Downing Street move