Fern Britton reveals the key to her five-stone weight reduction | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV | EUROtoday

You know what they are saying. Write about what you understand. So, right here now we have Delia Jago, heroine of Fern Britton’s new novel, A Cornish Legacy, and she or he’s misplaced the whole lot. Her mom, her father, her profession, her marriage. Remind you of anybody? Fern breaks into that acquainted face-splitting smile. “Well, yes,” she says. “I’ve been there.”

Her mom, Ruth, died in 2018. “I must admit, I found it difficult writing those scenes in the book. Mum was in her 90s but, no matter how old you are, you’re still a child to somebody.” She followers her face. “Just look at me.” Seven years later, Fern, 67, nonetheless wells up on the reminiscence of the loss. Her father, actor Tony Britton, died the subsequent yr. “As soon as I heard, I went and told the girls [daughters Grace and Winnie]; they were both living with me then. ‘I’m an orphan,’ I announced and they burst out laughing. It was exactly the tonic I needed.”

As to her profession, properly, it’s been a little bit of a rollercoaster, she says. She’s twice been sacked, the primary event when she returned to GMTV’s Top of the Morning having given delivery at 37 to her twin sons, Harry and Jack. “The man who told me there was no more work for me was a coward. He’d put somebody else in my position while I was on maternity leave and he didn’t have the guts to give me back my job.”

The second dismissal was from Carlton Television’s After Five. “I was in the grip of post-natal depression. The woman I’d been interviewing was talking with much courage about the fact that she was terminally ill with breast cancer. And I’d cried on air, which was judged inappropriate.”

In 2009, she stepped down from co-presenting This Morning with Phillip Schofield after 10 years. “I always say that he and I had an indefinable chemistry which seemed to work well on screen. One day, when the time feels right, I’ll share with the world what really happened.” They haven’t spoken from that day to this.

Sadly, that can be true of the opposite Phil in her life, her now ex-husband, TV chef Phil Vickery. “He hasn’t spoken to me for six years now. As soon as my mum died, he stopped talking to me.” But, when all’s stated and achieved, he stays the daddy of her youngest youngster. “Winnie adores him. I’m not going to bad-mouth him in front of her; at least, I try very hard not to. I was the child of divorced parents and my mum never bad-mouthed my father.”

Nor is she asking for particular sympathy. “Like many people, I’ve been through divorce, so I have an understanding of it. And that made it easier to write about.” For a while now, she’s had this second profession. “It’s much harder than sitting in a TV studio for a couple of hours at a time. Writing has become my bread and butter.”

Next yr, there might be one other Cornish novel, her twelfth. She’s reluctant to say a lot about it, aside from that the story got here to her absolutely fashioned as she was mendacity on the ground, staring on the ceiling. The truth she was on the ground was as a result of she’d simply completed an train regime. Was this in her dwelling gymnasium?

She laughs. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read. There is no home gym. I have weights and dumbbells in my bedroom.”

Almost two years in the past, Fern had radical shoulder surgical procedure – an advanced four-hour operation. She’d first harm her proper shoulder when she’d tried to heft a heavy bag of garbage right into a wheelie bin. “When I finally got to see the NHS surgeon, I told him about the constant pain. The shoulder had become arthritic and he said he was going to do a complete replacement.

“I burst into tears. He was taking me seriously. I then asked him whether I’d still feel pain post-op and he said: ‘Plastic and metal have no nerves.’ And he was right. It was also the trigger for shedding all those pounds.”

Fern launched into a wholesome regime that features biking, strolling and consuming sensibly – low on processed meals and sugar, excessive on protein and veg – which has resulted in her astonishing five-stone weight reduction.

Some years again, she bumped into hassle for not revealing she’d had a gastric band fitted. Hand on coronary heart, can she now say she hasn’t resorted to fats jabs?

“Absolutely. Honestly. I promise. It’s down to exercise and eating the right food.”

Three occasions per week, she does a half-hour warm-up utilizing weights earlier than embarking on her subsequent run as a part of the Couch to 5k routine which helps you attain the last word objective by including a bit extra mileage every time you set off.

“By the end of nine weeks, you can run for 30 minutes without stopping,” she explains.

She’s not in ache anymore. “And I’m happy. Ask anyone why they’re piling on the pounds and the answer will invariably be because they’re eating away their unhappiness. Before the operation on my shoulder, I was smoking, eating, drinking. I couldn’t put my bra on without help… I was so miserable. Now, I have a very peaceful life and four children I adore.”

Harry, Jack and daughter Grace are from her first marriage to TV govt Clive Jones; she additionally has a daughter, Winnie, 24 in August, from her marriage to Phil. “These days, if I ever catch sight of my reflection, my genuine reaction is that I look stronger somehow, both externally and in my head. Out of something bad has come something really good, the best gift I’ve ever been given. I’m never going to muck it up.”

Again, regardless of what you could have learn, there isn’t a new man in Fern’s life since she and Phil went their separate methods in 2020 after twenty years collectively. “I got an email the other day from someone who said they’d read I’d got a new boyfriend. Not true.”

Not that she’s ruling it out. “If somebody amazing came along, that could be nice. But I’m not expecting it to happen. Anyway, I spend most of my time at home. I’m not out looking. I describe myself as a silver splitter and a recluse.”

Well, nearly. “Winnie is a builder and lives with me because she can’t afford to live anywhere else. So, I see her every day. And Grace lives 15 minutes away; she works as a nurse at Treliske Hospital so she pops by when she can. I also have two lovely girlfriends, near neighbours. We’re very close. But, mostly, I’m on my own at home, writing.”

There aren’t any grandchildren but. But there are two canines – or fur infants, as she places it – in her life. “Grace has a rescue chihuahua called Hulk; he’s adorable, the best boy. Then, 18 months ago, she and her partner got a Staffy Collie cross called Maggie who’s delicious. Both dogs spend a lot of time with me.”

They maintain Fern firm when she’s tapping out a thousand phrases a day of her subsequent novel, though she does settle for the occasional TV project. She’ll quickly be seen fronting six hour-long Bristol-set episodes of Inside The Vet’s on ITV from July 5 at 2pm. What about that hearsay she was being wooed by This Morning to return to the pastel couch? “Again, not strictly true. After I’d done Big Brother last year, I was invited by This Morning to do four little travel films. And that was it.”

She sounds content material. “I truly am, although nobody’s Pollyanna all day long. There are moments when I’m writing and I feel a bit lonely and I’d love to be able to say to someone: ‘Oh, put the kettle on, would you?’

“But I’ve started going to church again and that’s been fantastic. It’s a collection of normal people. At the end of every church service, one of the wardens, Winston, hands out his incredible homemade cakes.

“He’s a digger driver by day and a cake maker by night. I’m always pleased when I’ve been. It gives me a bit of warmth and a bit of a clear-out, in a way. One of the vicars is a young man with lots of tattoos – he’s also a lifeboat man – who makes us ‘share the peace’. That means shaking hands with the person standing next to you.

“It can be scary but I recommend it to anyone who’s feeling a bit down, a bit lonely. It makes you feel part of a community.”

• A Cornish Legacy by Fern Britton (HarperCollins, £16.99) is revealed on June 5