Carol Vorderman: My ‘facelift’ became folklore! Can women have beauty and brains?

0:01Fearne Cotton: Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fearne Cotton. This is the show that gives you the confidence to be your brilliant, multifaceted self. Today, I'm chatting to Carol Vorderman. Year 2000, I went to the BAFTAs and I wore a short blue dress. It was all over the front pages the next day. And then the BBC made a big programme about it. It was then in the papers. And the question was, should a woman aged 39 wear a dress above the knee? So then it became Carol's this, Carol's that. I should have sued. And that was the error because it became folklore. Right. I've wanted this chat to happen for a long time.

0:41Fearne Cotton: I've just been on a book tour for my book, Likeable, which, you know, it's always an interesting thing going on a book tour. You actually get to talk to people and see what they think about that subject matter. and the notion of trying to be likable to everybody is something that still greatly interests me and something that I want to personally challenge and whilst I was writing this book I was thinking about women who I think have broken the mold and don't care so much whether they're liked or disliked and don't play by the rules and I say the word rules with inverted commas because they're not real they're bullshit but the ones that we also dutifully follow to be a woman who doesn't cause a scene or make a fuss etc and one of the people I wrote about in the book was Carol Vorderman because to me she is the epitome of someone that just does life her way and also breaks the mold.

1:39Fearne Cotton: She has the biggest IQ, she's done so much for education in the UK and continues to get people curious about maths but also politics more recently and she also happens to wear tight leather trousers big belts and have an amazing body and people don't seem to like that people love to give her shit about the fact that she looks a certain way but it's really clever like the two things can't be true which is so mad so I wrote quite a bit about Carol Vorderman in the book and basically ended that section by saying we should all be more Carol and I have to remind myself it constantly because I do still worry too much about what people think about me or what I'm wearing or what I look like or whatever.

2:23Fearne Cotton: And I don't think Carol cares at all. I think she's a bit of a guiding light for many of us. And actually, if you listened to the episode of Happy Place we did recently with Ashley James, you will have heard that Carol Vorderman is a mentor. I think that's the sort of official label that they've given it. She's a bit of a mentor for Ashley and has really helped her navigate talking about politics on TV and how to navigate criticism being in the public eye and also it's probably just like very good mate to have great chats with like a very solid soundboard lucky Ashley so that's why well they're some of the reasons I wanted to have Carol Vorderman on the podcast also the fact that you don't hear so much about Carol's backstory because she's so sort of current affairs minded and in the now, in the present, that we forget that she's got this very long career and very interesting backstory, which you will hear about today.

3:21Fearne Cotton: You can also currently find her on Channel 5's Celebrity Puzzling, as well as all over your internet being just generally incredibly candid and direct with her opinions, which we're here for. The hustle doesn't have to hurt. If performance pressure is making it hard to breathe, Grow Therapy helps you navigate stress, set boundaries, and actually feel like yourself again. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and get started in as little as two days.

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5:49Fearne Cotton: All right, let's do it. This is the show.

6:12Fearne Cotton: Carol Vorderman Yes Can I tell you How I've been desperate To get you on the podcast For so long That's kind I am I think you are queen You are Arthur So this is my new book I'm not pushing this book In this chat No no no But you are There's a section in the book About you you're joking no seriously yeah seriously got you a copy because i just think what you stand for and how you go about your business is exceptional and we can just all do with being a bit more carol vorderman in my eyes so wonderful yeah i'm bloody well mean it i think you're amazing and also like looking at your backstory which i don't think gets talked about enough because the brilliant thing about you is you're always currently on it like you're you're engaged in the world around you you're on top of things you want to talk about relevant things going on in the world but actually then we kind of stop looking at you as a person and your backstory which is exceptional in itself you don't come from money you don't come from yeah you don't come from this established family that was always it was a given you would go to university you broke the mold massively yeah so first of all let's start with carol vorderman growing up in north wales yeah you've not got much money but you've got what is it drive is it determination i don't know you see because i was quite a quiet little little child but i'm 65 now so 1960 was very different and what we often read about the 60s is oh yeah everyone was i don't know smoking as I call it Marijuana because I have no idea what it even looks like right so we go Marijuana and everyone was in on the king's road no they weren't you know 99 % of the population weren't doing that no but that's the stuff that we read about and see and that's great and the swinging 60s were fantastic what we did have was girls who had you had plastic socks that were to give you and then you had like black plastic socks and you'd wear them with black shoes and they were like black your black boots that's what you had and mini skirts yeah I mean obviously they were everywhere but they were very different times and I was never conscious that we were poor so my mum and Mr Borderman my father had been married a long time and had my brother and sister who were now well in their 70s.

8:46And then I came along. I was obviously the error. And I was born Christmas Eve. Two weeks later, my biological father told my mum that he'd been having an affair with a very young girl. And so my mum left him. So they had been living in Bedford. My mum was from North Wales, so she naturally took the kids and went back home. so we lived in a very cold small flat in prestatin on the ground floor and um my mum paid a pound I know because she told me pound a week rent for the house and she'd rent out the top the upstairs flat to all sorts of interesting people there was one lady called and I do remember this uh Carrie Fortune her name was so funny how names stay with you when someone makes an impact and And she was having an affair with this guy called Roger.

9:43I only know this because my mum's told me since, right? Roger turned up with an axe one night. He was axing his way through. I mean, it's not funny, obviously. She wasn't harmed in any way. So he was known as Roger the Axeman. That's so good. Oh, it was quite wild. And even though we had literally no money and mum had five part-time jobs and so on, it was just always interesting yeah and we had this old sofa with you're too young to know but it was called bry nylon so bry nylon was like stretch almost crumpling really and you used to buy covers for sofas or covers for chairs in bry nylon and ours was red and if someone had been because everyone smoked you know my sister as a teenager and so stub it out quickly she'd do it on the sofa.

10:38And there'd be these perfect like brown rings in this brine nylon thing. And me as a toddler, I'd be propped up in the corner of this sofa and then everyone would be like going through and my mad cousin Pam, who I adored, was like an older sister really. Everything was going on in this flat in a way that kind of, you know, to have that nowadays is much more difficult. But we lived at number three my auntie Megan and Mark lived at number seven and then my auntie Dolly and her three lived at number nine so Pam used to run away to us at number three so Pam lived at those there were four in one bedroom me and my mum in one bed and my sister and Pam in another in one bedroom and then my brother had this like this box room and it was just there was always something going on And in North Wales, we didn't have posh people.

11:38And it's very difficult to explain that to people because it's quite an English concept. I'm not saying you don't have it in other countries. But in Wales, you kind of don't have it in the same way because there wasn't sort of royalty around. You know, it's grand estates and all of that. so yeah look down on a little bit because mum was divorced and we were catholic not her fault but it so you never grew up with a chip on your shoulder does that make sense because people weren't everybody respected the policeman the teacher the traditional so you know the nurse the doctor they were sort of wow they're quite rightly um people to aspire to be and it was about that in North Wales rather than money, rather than a sense of class.

12:33And so we didn't have an upper class. So there was no one to look down on. And I think a lot of people forget that really. I made a laugh.

12:47Fearne Cotton: But did you have dreams of like, I want something different to this? No, because you don't. No. I was very happy. It was in the days where you would just be put out in the street in the morning. Yeah, hope for the best. But as I say, I could have gone to my auntie at number seven. I could have gone to my auntie at number nine. I knew the people at number 15. I knew, you know, at the top, the wards at the top of the road. And it was just like that was what happened. Yeah. And so was your intellect pointed out to you? Was it praised at school? It was at school. So my brother was born with the severest form of cleft, lip and palate.

13:26So he's had 24 operations. And I used to call him my little daddy. So Anton is called. So our father was called Anton, a Dutch name. And he was, how old is Anton? He's seven, eight years older than me. And he, because he had this cleft, he was very conscious of it and the severest form. and so he would stay at home he didn't want to go out with his friends he loved chess uh he had a little duplicating business you know we had this old duplicator mum would type the stencils and then I had to turn this handle and they were like knitting patterns or the church magazine or whatever and he earned a few shillings as they were in those days and he taught me to play chess we would have i know it's going to sound really naff but we had a catalogue called the burlington's cat like freeman's catalog right it's called burlington's and mum had the burlington's and then aunt and i would sit up every night because he would babysit me because mum had jobs in the evening yeah and um from september onwards we'd go through the toy section we'd write down every night our christmas lists so-called christmas lists and that's page what would you like casa page 179 i'd like that and then we'd do that and then the next night we'd do it all again and the list would change knowing that we could never have anything yeah but it was like we played with everything by the time christmas came well we were bored with it all because we played in our heads and then i did have a present one year when mum had gone down to woolies at the bottom of town and she bought this I've still got him bungee bear this big teddy bear still got him still got him and he's pink and white and she'd only afford him because he had one ear and nobody wanted him and so he's in the sale before Christmas and Christmas Eve baby and he was like the only present that I ever had that was new you know yeah so but and I know he sounds mad we were happy yeah I wasn't conscious of it I was like yeah and then my sister ran away to the circus and then my mum then remarried my stepfather who lived in a different town but didn't go and live with him it's a bit mad so she ran away to the circus with me when I was nine and I didn't like I mean I didn't mind the circus but then we moved to Windsor which I'd never heard dog before and she put me in a school and I'd always been a year ahead at school yeah because I was a bright kid and I had to go to this school and I'd I'd I don't lose my temper I have a wilt when I was a kid and I'd I and I remember sitting at the back of this class thinking I did this two years ago this is what a waste of time this is you know and I was missing my friends obviously, missing my brother who'd remained back in the flat, who was 16 by then.

16:35And it was like, oh, I said to her that night, I'm not going back. You have to, darling. No, I'm not going back. So she knew then she had to go back. And we moved in with my stepfather. So I love this. My father was in the Dutch resistance during the war. So he was obviously on the side of the Allies, but in Holland. Yeah. Just like the French resistance, there was a Dutch resistance. So that is very brave man. Welcomed into this country, made his home in Britain. My stepfather was a mad Italian. So he was on the opposite side, obviously fighting for the Italians. Mussolini, who was on the side of Hitler.

17:19And so he came over as one of the first prisoners of war. And so he was put in as many prisoners of war were. they were from poor agricultural families into farms. And he married the Welsh farmer's daughter. And then very sad, they had two children. Very sadly, she died. And years later, he met my mum. But I adored, I called him dad. We were with him about 10 years.

17:43Fearne Cotton: Because you didn't meet your dad properly until you were in your 40s, right? 42, yeah. But my stepfather, my dad, I always say, first language, Italian. Second language, Welsh. third language English so you can imagine what was going on by that favourite language swearing love oh my lord it was like going from a black and white life to bloody technicolor yes and he was a builder and he had this pickup and I'd go Katty you bitch come here and I thought this was the funniest because I think swearing's brilliant right and it's like and it used to cut driving up town in this tiny little Welsh town Everyone knew Gabrielle's English.

18:26Everyone knew Gabrielle's English. Dr. Gwynn, you bastard. Hello. That's so great. Hello, Gabrielle. You know, it was like perfectly normal. And he always had this big, it was like larger than life. And I worshipped him. But mum kept leaving him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, that's life. So I'm well used to that. I kind of learned young that I had to look after myself.

18:52Fearne Cotton: Yes, and I absolutely have understood this about you forever. And having a deep dive before this chat today, independence seems like a very important quality to you. And that strikes a chord with me. I feel the same. I think at times I've been hyper independent, almost warding people off like, no, no, I know what I'm doing. I don't want anyone's help. Leave me to it, which I think can be problematic in a sense too. Where are you at now with the independence chat? The word independent going through me like a stick of rock. People remember sticks of rock. Yes. And you break me, it's there. It's there.

19:30And I know it came from seeing my mum, because, of course, in those days, you know, what do you call it now, where people get divorced and the man doesn't pay. Oh, child maintenance, if they're not paying it. Yeah, and he didn't. And I saw, you know, nearly physically killed her having to do all of these jobs and have three children. A baby, a child with severe cleft, and there wasn't, you know, the services that we have now. And then my sister was running a bit wild. So much to deal with. So, so much to do. But she got through it. And so I thought, so I got to come, graduated when I was 20. And mum then said three weeks later, I'm leaving him.

20:13I thought, oh, not again. So we left one morning, my stepfather. Yeah. Yeah. So bearing in mind, at that point, we lived in a nice house that was like a little bit of a sense of security for me, having been dragged from pillar to post. And it's, oh, right, here we go. And you're never to talk to him again. We had this old Datsun, this like rust bucket of a cart, literally a rust bucket. I think it had one wing mirror. You know, in those days, people didn't check on wing mirrors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't a thing. Just hope the best. Yeah, yeah. And everyone was the same. and it was painted brown to cover the rust and we piled everything we had, we had no money into this car and he always used to go off to the quarry for stones for the job on the building site first thing in the morning so he left about five and we'd packed it the night before while he was asleep in front of the telly and then while he went off to the quarry he went right, we went left um about 10 minutes behind him he said you must never see him again which was a bit cruel actually because i adored him yeah and then she went to windsor where she ended up in her 50s living in digs student digs in her 50s hard so after a year where i was living out of this car she was in the thing i said mum we can't go on and i had this boyfriend who i'd met working when i was working underground with him that's a whole other story uh in a civil engineering site and he was from yorkshire and he played rugby up there so i used to go in the amateur days up there to this city called leeds and oh i loved leeds people were funny you know and i just like yes this is my place and i said to him we can afford a house gotta go back this is now 1981 we had nothing again and I said we can afford a house there so we moved up and three weeks after we moved in she was a news addict newspaper addict and she's by the Yorkshire Evening Post which is like the standard evening standard in London and she saw this thing about in Yorkshire television in Leeds in the studios which were a mile away from this little house we bought they were going to do this new show called Countdown for this new channel called Channel 4 and they couldn't find anyone I was good with the numbers and she said, you'd be good at that.

22:39I went, no, don't be ridiculous. I'm an engineer, mum. What do I do? Don't be ridiculous. So she wrote the letter. No way. Yeah, she put in my graduation and she forged my signature and sent it off. And then she told me she'd done it. Yeah. That is one of those incredible moments of fate. Yeah, it was absolutely meant to be. But this is the thing, Fern. This is why this sort of independence streak, and I'm always hopeful, because we really, you know, I'd gone to Cambridge out of, you know, it was impossible to get in from being a free school meals kid. But I did. And I was only the third girl to read engineering at the college, you know, and all of this stuff.

23:24You had to be first at everything or second or third ever in history to get anywhere back then. And then you sit and you see all these kids who are from, like, relatively wealthy backgrounds and from very wealthy backgrounds not their fault that's how it was but it was like yeah they could go off and they had a house their parents had a house and we didn't we lived out of a car and and to go from that yeah to get i thought no this time i'm doing it yes this time i am doing it for you mum and for me yes so she always lived with me yeah from that moment on my mum lived with me through my marriage through you know helped me helped bring up the kids until she died when she was 89 so it was uh nearly 89 so it was like you know you make the best of it yes and there is no perfect childhood no no one could have adored their mother more than I did who would choose to live with their mum you know she as far as my kids are concerned it was me nana and the two of them yeah and is there a perfect

24:27Fearne Cotton: childhood no but you know what I think is so interesting about all the stories that you've told about your childhood yeah is that okay you can look at the fact that there were moments where it was chaotic and you were moving about or there was a lack of money but a key thing and I remember a friend saying this to me is when I had my children as it being a really important component of childhood and that is always ensuring there are interesting people in their lives yes It doesn't matter how, you know, we'll all mess up. We're all going to do something wrong that causes our kids pain or confusion.

24:59Fearne Cotton: But if you can give them love, obviously a fundamental, but introduce them to interesting people in their lives, that is a gift. And actually one that seemingly has impacted how you see the world, who you are as a person. It informs who you are. Who thought? It's so important. Living next door to a lion tamer would do this. So great. But it is. I think we worry about all these silly things. We were talking off mic before about, have I gone to the sports day or the parents evening? I remember it's not uniform day. I can't believe it, Fern. I'm 20 years older than you. More or less. I can't believe.

25:36I have two children. Yeah. Cameron is 29. He lives. We live together. Very happily. There's never anything even remotely, remotely near a heated debate. No. Do you know what I mean? because he's used to the three-generational living. And he and I was like, yeah, we're happy. Why won't we ever laugh? I love that. You know, blah, blah. Katie's 33. So when they were growing up in the 1990s, going into the noughties, early noughties, I'm talking about primary age. Yeah, yeah. You know, I thought, what in the hell? We parents have a lot to do, much more than my mum. My mum literally, because that was how it was.

26:19Yeah, of course. You put them out on the street. You fed you a love, that was it. You kicked a ball and you did all that. You tied someone to a tree with a rope or whatever it might be. Tried to untie them before the rain came down. And that was like normal. Yes. And of course, it can't be for many reasons now. And I'm not saying everyone should be like that. You can't. No. Because there are more people around. There are more dangers around. There are more cars around. Yes. You know, we didn't have cars in the street then. So you can't. But equally. We've gone too far. I can't believe it the pressure it's insane is mad yeah and I think parents evening were only introduced in you know I was at a comp in the 70s yes so my mum never went to school no

27:04Fearne Cotton: you just got sent to school and that was it my mum would just go bye and I would hopefully come back at the other end of the day exactly and that was not very normal but the pressure that is put on and all this to be perfect yeah you've got to be the bendiest person. You've got to be the one with the best career with the, you know, the wealthiest friends who drives the best car, also does the most adventurous things, also has the most perfect children who all play rugby, cricket, you know. Yeah, all the body things. You know, lacrosse, whatever. Eat kale. In the thing. Yeah. They're all super bright.

27:40Kids aren't like that. No. Stop putting the pressure on the kids. Oh, and then we have, oh, I'm only a taxi service at the weekends because they, You've organised 17 things for them to do.

27:50Fearne Cotton: Ridiculous. They're exhausted. We're exhausted. They're exhausted. What are we doing? It's absurd. It's mad. It's not a criticism. It's just the system. The system we're in culturally is mad. Mental. You know what's wild? Most people are still overpaying for car insurance just because it's a pain to switch. That's why there's Jerry. Jerry's the only app that compares rates from over 50 insurers in minutes. and helps you switch fast with no spam calls or hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over$1 ,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, do yourself a favor. Download the Jerry app or head to jerry.ai.acast.

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30:35Fearne Cotton: and i think if we get down to the the absolute basics which you have for your whole life been so passionate about which is education yeah totally so okay yes they can do extracurriculars if they really really want to but all the other shit about going to parents evening and the whatsapp groups that are eight miles long all mad but let's focus on the basics which is giving kids the opportunity to go and do a thing they really really love doing and be curious about the world always be curious always I am eternally curious even at this age me too just about yeah I love it um but equally allow a child to get bored allow a child to go at their pace yeah So my daughter is one of the most intelligent, bright woman of her age.

31:25She won two years ago the World's Top Female Innovator Award. She's extraordinary. Cambridge all the way, PhD in nanotech. She has her own bioscience space company. Oh, it's so impressive. It's called BioOrbit. She's extraordinary. and she's still only 33 and they're sending their first prototype drugs factory to the space station in May. So I've got one at that end, right, who was always top of the class. Did I ever have to ask Katie to do her homework? No. Never. Oh, here's my homework. And when she was little, Paddy, when we were married, Paddy and I would take her to a restaurant to eat with us and everyone fell in love with Katie because she took her drawings and she'd say, here's a, go to another table, here's a drawing for you that I have just done.

32:15You're the cutest kid in the world, right? Miss Perfect, Katie. And then I had Cameron five years later who has special educational needs. About then people didn't talk about ADHD or ADD. Obviously now they do. There was no SEMCO. Off the scale dyslexic, blah, blah, blah. I had to find a special school for him. There were only two in the country that could deal with that level. And that was in London. And so I had one at one end and one at the other. And there was a lot of bullying with special education on these kids. He's a driving instructor now. And it's like, you know, you think, well, what's right for her isn't right for him.

32:57And he needed support. I'm not saying she didn't, but he needed a particular kind of support. and you know to know that as soon as he came home he was safe yeah and you know so all this helicopter parenting as i believe it's called and so this is not a criticism of anyone who's watching listening or watching thinking oh she's having a go at me i am not having a go i'm saying that you take the pressure off yourself take the pressure off yes literally off and what do you

33:33Fearne Cotton: think outside of parenting what do you think the educate or the school system is getting wrong because like you say at the moment we are pushing all kids to the same degree without looking at what their own bespoke needs are or interests are we're just going you need to be good at GCSE level at 11 subjects go and that's insane you know what what are your thoughts on that so So kids have different academic levels, right? So I have written papers about this. Yeah. And, you know, for my math school and all of this. And through videos and books. The first online math school. Yeah. And the math school.

34:13I've taught millions of children over the years. And the feedback, because I've done maths on the telly for so long, or did, you know, every day people would say what they felt about numbers and what about their children were doing and all that. So I've had a lot of input. And I wrote for my sins for David Cameron when he was Prime Minister. Excuse me while I have a mini trauma. A whole paper, like a task force. I ran this task force which was about maths education, age 5 to 19. So we did a lot of deep diving with that. And it showed that, and it's moved on again since then, the last 16 years, that was 2010.

34:56It showed that in primary schools, the vast majority, I think it was about 96 % of teachers had given up maths at age 16. So there was a sort of, in a lot of them, maybe the unions won't be happy with me saying this, there was a fear of the numbers. Right. It was a sort of, ooh, I'm not quite sure. You know, I know percentages, fractions and decimals sort of mean the thing, but I will follow whatever I'm told by the curriculum to do. So there was a sort of, and hundreds have admitted that off the record. And again, I am not having a go. It's about a system. It's very easy to purvey a fear of maths, simplest thing in the world, or go, oh, that's boring because a child's doing, I don't know, time stables and that's boring now.

35:49It's so hard. Wrong thing to say. Yeah. Exactly the wrong. It's about encouragement. But I think there's too much pressure on children. In this report, I advised that most children don't need trigonometry. Most children don't even need algebra. Yeah. So the way a curriculum is set is it goes from the university down. So if you are going to go to university to do engineering or physics or whatever it might be, the university needs the A-levels to have covered certain subjects. The A-levels, for you to start those two years early, need the GCSEs to have covered certain subjects. whereas actually the vast majority of kids aren't going to do A-level this, A-level that, they're not going to go to university to do maths and physics and chemistry and engineering much as I think they're the most wonderful subjects.

36:48So there should be a way of going about it separately where you go, no, you need financial training, you really need to understand your numbers, you really need to know how people can scam you with numbers and so on and let 60 % of the kids go and do that. The really bright kids who go on to do full GCSE, I'm talking about maths, obviously that's my subject, who do that can also do the other one and they'll probably do it very quickly. Fine, so they do two of them. But that is what is needed and it's a massive failure because of the way the curricula are set.

37:26Fearne Cotton: Yeah, it seems like, having watched my stepkids go through this and now my son's 13 so he's just entering that, we're starting to do tests and exams etc that the level of stress compared to when I was at school seems wild I don't remember and I've got you know I'm still friends with all my schoolmates and one of my friends was very academic in every subject you would get A's A stars but even she was kind of like pretty laid back about it I'll revise I'll do my best but now it seems like for the child and parent there's this insane level of stress insane yes and it only started relatively recently yeah because we had the sats that were introduced i think in the 90s yes i did sats in the 90s yeah um which i don't approve of so all of a sudden i mean i i kind of understand why we had the national curriculum because some schools weren't studying a whole section and so let's get something that goes across all the state schools.

38:24So at least they're all studying the same thing. Then it became tick box exercise where it would be, have they done a singular digit plus a single digit equals a single digit? In other words, three plus six equals nine. Tick, tick, tick. Teachers have to tick, tick, tick, tick all the time. Have they done single plus single equals a double digit? Three plus nine equals 12, as a for instance. tick tick tick come on you don't need to tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick and we found this with the online math school where we taught half a million kids in lockdown you know when they were most proud of that primary age we could take a child from you know bottom table as they used to say in the class in primary to top table six weeks amazing seven weeks very common and it lives with them because suddenly they're in control of the numbers yeah and they have confidence absolutely because it's like almost you can't swim you're thrown in a swimming pool you're just scared of water it's a bit like that with maths when you're taught to swim taught your numbers properly you can get into the water you can control what you do in the swimming pool and it's exactly the same and so i really feel sorry for teachers particularly the younger ones who've been brought into this tick box mentality not their fault again we go back to it's a system yeah but there was a lot to do with the sats which was political you know a lot of people go uh politics i'm not interested in politics what's politics got to do with me literally everything everything literally everything yeah from the price of fuel yeah you'll know what's happening after yeah trump has gone into iran literally from that to how clean is your water to what your child is studying at school to the pressure your child has in school to what teachers have to put up with i mean it is literally everything everything everything

40:28Fearne Cotton: one of the most brilliant things about your whole story is we've all seen your career evolve over the years but also I think as a woman and this is something where you know I'm certainly on this journey at the moment yeah is finding your power feeling like you can stand up and say these are my beliefs I'm educated in this area or this is what I would like to put forward as as my idea and I think that does take years of experience and growth and knowing yourself inherently so you can stand there and confidently say what you want to say which you know I know so many of my girlfriends just like go Carol we love you when do you think you started to feel like yeah I want to have my bloody say I want to be in this conversation I want to get involved in this I don't think it's a moment I think it's because of my growing up yeah and I think I was lucky people who go into media now you're full there you are you're exposed aren't you exposed on social media you're exposed everywhere uh it's a lot more clickbaity now than it ever was so when I was on telly in the 80s the most that would happen is someone might come up with a piece of scrappy paper and go can I have your autograph please you know now it's like drunks trying to put their arm on your butt you know yeah can I have a selfie and you go get off and they go what do you mean get off I know why are you being like that it's like I don't know you I have no idea who you are you've been drinking all day I don't want your hand on my ass you know funny that you know and then they start shouting so you learn to avoid yes on a Saturday right so but um I know I'm slight I know I'm slightly different in that because I worked as an engineer I worked underground I went down the mines I know all of that kind of thing and my stepfather was a builder so I was always around builders I loved it like you know and they weren't rude they weren't nasty or anything but there's a lot of that banter that was going on but not bad not bad at all and I like that I I found that was like sort of lively so mine came and then And press were really nice to me in the 80s and into the 90s.

42:52And then they sort of switched, particularly the likes of the Daily Mail, where it was when the internet came around, it was like, oh, let's get clickbait. Let's get comments. Let's get comments. And the easiest way to do that is to make one woman hate another woman. Correct. That's like the business model. So then you're like, oh, and at the time I was, you know, on everything, on ITV and also on Countdown and so on. So I became quite immune to it very early on. Yeah. And I think, no, you're wrong. I'm right. And you can do one. God, I wish I'd felt like that. Well, I don't know why. I can't help it.

43:35You know, I think sometimes you can't help it. But I think that, and it's been absurd things. You may have heard this story before, but I was age 39, year 2000, this century. this millennium and it's quite weird for people my age you know I'm a boomer to think the year 2000 was like something god you know what we're going to be doing oh I remember thinking that everything's gonna have flowers everywhere we're gonna have a little jet pack on our back and we're all gonna be floating right we're all gonna be floating no one will be in cars anymore all waving with a little jet pack and then we come to a thing that's what we thought life would been the year 2000 no no it was like this one should be fireworks that floated down the thames that we all were meant to watch you know and it was like oh that's it you know that was no millennium bug nothing that no no millennium bug nothing nothing it just carried on just carried on it just carried on it was quite weird and then so year 2000 i went to the baftas i think i was giving an award, BAFTA tellies, and I wore a short blue dress.

44:43It was all over the front pages next day. And then the BBC made a big programme about it. It was then in the papers. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And the question was, should a woman aged 39 wear a dress above the knee? Fuck off. Seriously. This was not 1963. Ridiculous. This was the year 2000. So then it became Carol's this, Carol's that. So it was like, yeah, Carol does this, Carol does that. Then I had sepsis, rushed into hospital, NHS in London, because I lived in London at the time briefly. And I didn't know what was wrong with me. I was in ambulance to the hospital. And then when I woke up, said, I'm putting you on antibiotics.

45:35my manager was ringing and he said everybody wants to know what's wrong with you and I was and my manager said we're not telling them you don't have to tell them well I didn't know what it was anyway I just knew I was very ill and uh so they were ringing up going is she having an abortion is she doing this is she doing that we stuck our ground I became stubborn then so don't tell them don't tell them there's nothing to hide my gallbladder had virtually exploded on me right So then the gallbladder, so I was in for two weeks, front page, front page, front page, came out really still very weak and ill.

46:13I just had this massive gallbladder operation. The following Sunday, mail on Sunday, bear in mind, I was only like 42. She's gone in for an emergency facelift. Emergency facelift? What's that? Yeah, 42. It's like, what the fuck? So I wrote this thing. That's the funniest headline ever. Yeah, I looked in the mirror on a Saturday night and thought, oh, my God, let me phone 999 for a thing. It was so ludicrous. I should have sued. Yeah. And that was the error because it became folklore. Wow. Yeah.

46:50Fearne Cotton: That is mad. This is the thing about you, Carol, is and you highlight for everyone, women and men, but for women especially. this notion that if you are an academic or you are intelligent you have a bigger iq and you understand how the world works and certain things that you are to give over the entirety of your vanity and that you're not allowed to look hot and gorgeous or wear nice clothes that you have to fit a stereotype that probably a man has invented hundreds of years ago and you have busted that myth again and again and this is why i love you on social media more than anything is that there you are being the most intelligent person we know, also looking fucking incredible.

47:33Fearne Cotton: And people want to comment on it constantly, like Carol shouldn't be wearing those trousers. Carol shouldn't be wearing a figure hugging top. Carol shouldn't have that belt on. It's like, what are you talking about? It makes me do it more. Good. How many people can wind up today? You know, literally. Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But people are obsessed by the concept that you should, Like wear some sort of smock to do maths. But I think it's changed now. Has it? Well, I think it has. Yeah. I don't know whether I just don't care. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, I care far less at this age than I ever have.

48:15And you know this because you've been interviewing a lot of women of different age groups. Yeah, gets better. It does. It's like, oh, just fuck off. it's like really very boring go away very boring very boring very boring i'm glad i'm not you yes no and i i but i don't even feel it like that it's just like it doesn't even no it doesn't enter

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51:08Fearne Cotton: Hearing about your childhood and how you're brought up and even going to Cambridge as someone that isn't for money and isn't in that world. That was huge. Is that you've learned along the way to do life your way. Yeah, but I turned up at Cambridge. I was only 17 when I went. And I was the first free school meals kid from North Wales to get there, which was wild. And it was only the third year that my wonderful college, I'm an honorary fellow there now. I love my college, Sydney Sussex College, had taken girls. and we just celebrated 50 years of that, which is fantastic. So great. It's just great.

51:48Things are better now. Yeah. And they're great, but they're a lot better than they were. And I turned up, my boyfriend at the time was a chicken farmer. And so I was 17. He was like, oh, ancient. He must have been 22 or something like that. And we used to go to nightclubs in Manchester all the time, you know, things like that. It was obviously illegally, but, you know, nobody bothered in those days. Oh, yeah. It was easy. It never really. It wasn't a trouble thing. There weren't drugs around. People might say otherwise, but I never saw anything. And it just felt quite safe, really. And so we turned up in this Porsche.

52:30I got out in my thailand-fleather boots. Love. Pre-Lycra, very tight trousers. Because in those days, I was a stick, you know, you're 17, you're a stick, aren't you? You know, everything's in the right place. And your skin's all plump and gorgeous. And you don't have to do anything, you know, to keep it that way. So it's like, so I got out and I rarely took those thigh length leather boots off for three years. And I was known as Boots Forderman. That was my nickname. That's so good. Yeah, yeah. and I just thought oh these students they're wearing jeans every day it was like you'd walk down Sydney Street Scotland you walk down Sydney Street and everyone's navy blue because there wasn't much fashion around you know they were in a cagoule obviously it was raining and blue jeans and I'd think oh I'm not doing that I don't know I'm not doing that but it was very difficult to cycle in them that was the only problem to cycle down to the engineering department very tricky but that was just how I just thought I'm not doing that I'm not doing that so there was I learned a lot there but more than anything I was much more streetwise there was no chip

53:46Fearne Cotton: on the shoulder at all and you didn't notice a difference of class or did it worry you I think it was more that it wasn't class so much I thought my college is slightly different to the others you know as much more uh you like this they took in that year in 1978 three girls from state schools because this was still experimental for a boys college to go mixed as it was called i think there was like one girl to every eight boys in cambridge back then they took three from the northwest so when you live on the bit of north wales i'm from it's not snowdonia it's not deep whales it's you're a bit scouse and a bit mank yeah you know so they took me for a preschool meals kid age 17 from a comp they took and i'm done badly they considering they took sue thomas from uh state school in blackburn she went on to become the youngest female professor of chemistry in the country when she became police.

54:50Wow. And then they took another girl from Stockport and it was unheard of to have northerners down there. Yeah. It was very rare. And she went on, all in the same year, tiny college, and she went on to be an accountant and then she went on to join companies in California and she ended up on the global board of Google, YouTube, Netflix, Pixar, Dreamworks she's like Mrs Silicon Valley and that was because a man chose and we must remember that it's been men who have made history for us as well allowed us to do these things so many allies we have so many allies that they thought of the, how many girls did they take that year 30 that they would risk taking three northern states called girls.

55:54It's unimaginable, really, and it worked for them. Yeah. And I love telling that story because it's, you know, it was wonderful. And we all did our thing and fought our thing. And, you know, it was, yeah, I'm very happy about that. And that's why you can make change. And I'm always hopeful. I'm even hopeful in this absolutely mad-ass world.

56:21Fearne Cotton: Yeah, but I mean, you have to have hope. You have to have hope. You have to. Otherwise, you would not get out of bed in the morning. If I didn't feel hopeful about whether it was politics or just my own little life, I wouldn't leave the house. No. You have to have hope. And I understand that. Yeah. And I think it's very difficult for people at the moment. But there are times in our lives when you have to step up. and now everyone has to step up there's no excuse not to vote yeah there's no excuse not to register to vote there is absolutely no excuse because because if you don't vote at the moment the likelihood is you're going to get a far-right government right all you have to do is turn up and it's like oh it's not for me then the corruption which will be off the scale you will be paying for your kids will be paying for the less taxes for the super rich and on and on it goes it is on you I'm afraid you know there was a time when I try and coax people into it not now there is a time when you have to step up and it's now just going to say about America so he bangs on doesn't he about I wish I could do a good Trump impression we can all imagine it Jeremy Vine's ever so good at it And I'm like, I can do the hands, but I can't, that's all.

57:42And then, you know, oh, yeah, I won. I am the greatest vote ever, you know, for me. And no, it wasn't. So in America, they have a similar, or not dissimilar anyway, system to us. It's first past the post in various states and so on. And then that state will have seven seats and that blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you just count the votes, Kamala Harris got 75 million votes. He got 77 million votes. Like barely anything more. Tiny amount. Do you know how many people didn't vote? 90 million did not vote. If only five of those million had got off their arses and gone to the ballot box, how different the world would be.

58:31so politics is in your life whether you like it or not and it will determine everything it'll determine every tax where you can park your car where you can drive your car it's all politics so that is what i would like to say you have to check and you have to force people you know to vote as well yeah it is a time to step up yeah you know and people did it before or when Second World War came along, people had to stand up, and they did, and they did it for our freedom, and we mustn't allow that to slip. Yeah. Sorry, I get really like, well, I'm not sorry. No, you must not be sorry. It's what we're hearing about it because it's so simple to resolve.

59:13You just have to turn up. Yeah, exactly.

59:16Fearne Cotton: For people who don't want our country to go in a certain way but feel confused as to what direction they might vote in, Yeah, yeah. How would you suggest they go about finding out or educating themselves on that? Okay, well, that's a good question. I mean, obviously, you know, online you can find out a lot of things from the parties themselves. I tell you who's making me laugh at the moment, Ed Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems. I don't know what they're doing on their social media. It's on fire. And he's taking the piss out of people and all sorts. It's really brilliant. UK politics is getting entertaining maybe for the first time.

59:53Well, follow some of the parties. on Instagram. Yeah. You know, and at least you can get it from the horse's mouth. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Don't necessarily read all the comments because the reform, but you know what percentage in 2024 of online social media traffic I commented, you know, posts and stuff. 51 % was bots. More than half of it is bots.

1:00:16Fearne Cotton: the shit out of me. And people are sort of, but people are engaging with that and bots. Never engage with a bot. No, no, no. If somebody makes a comment that I don't like. I just delete it and block. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for a lovely life. And put the words in that you don't want to see. Yeah. Yeah. Curate it. Curate your Instagram. I do. Curate your bloody life. It's my life. It's your life. Exactly. So if you all would have just followed, you know, whether it's the Green Party or the Lib Dems or Labour Party or Conservatives, whichever it is, you get it from the horse's mouth. Yeah. But please vote.

1:00:48Fearne Cotton: Well, like you say, people should get out there, not only vote, but also have a look around, hear from the horse's mouth, work out what feels right to them, but do vote. You have to vote for your kids' sake. Two questions for you. Yes. First one. Yes. We're making, on a very different topic, a Happy Place playlist for people to listen to that makes them feel good and boosted. What song would you put on there? Weather Girls. Oh, fun. Yeah. I love that. It's raining men than weather girls, because back in the 80s when we moved to Leeds, we'd all go to this one pub. We all found each other, you know, all in our early 20s called the regent the rage and every friday night we pick on one there's about 40 of us pick on my fern we're having the party at yours so everyone bring their records as they love it i always took the weather girls so when i got married the first time which i shouldn't have done all happened um all my gang were there i was only like 24 or something and a baby and it all happened very too far too quickly so we had the you know in the days when you had one day was a wedding yeah you got married in the morning you had lunch and then you had a disco at night time and then the the b team came and that all your mates came you know that your mum didn't approve of at night time and i nicked um borrowed uh a dress from the 321 you won't remember the 321 show i do it was on itv yeah 321 one of the dolly birds as they were called one of their dresses for the night for the nighttime disco and I got up on stage and sang it's raining men at my own wedding love that I love that that's going on there that's just a feel-good song yeah I was dragged off though we were divorced within the year it was all downhill from the weather girls um and where is your happy place um I love sitting on my on my sofa oh me too i've got a lot of happy places i think happy places where you're happy and it doesn't have to be a physical place i am a very naturally a very happy person and i love being free i love living with my son i don't want a man around particularly that's not I go to men.

1:03:09I just like, I like to do my thing. I like to do what I like to do in the morning, what I like to do in the evening, you know, blah, blah. That's what I like. It makes me happy. And I have always said to the kids, you know, everybody has good days and bad days that happens. And then I'll go, but are you happy? Yeah. And I ask myself the same question. Are you happy? Yeah. And it's amazing how quickly you can forget the bad stuff. I have this system called Marks Out of Ten. Yeah, I love this. And you can do it about everything. I can do it about today in London, Marks Out of Ten. So I was on Good Morning Britain earlier having a rant about Nigel Farage, Poundland Trump, Charlton, all of those things.

1:03:56And then I had to come up to London the night before, live in Bristol, train, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Marks Out of Ten. Now, the train wasn't late, but let's say it was late because they're often cancelled, delayed, whatever. I could have gone, oh, God, the train was... You can send yourself down the rabbit hole. But marks out of 10, we've done it for years. You can do about a day. You can do about this podcast. You can do it about a meal that you might have. You can do about a week, a month, your health, whatever. And it's a way of self-monitoring. But you can only play the game if you accept that 7 out of 10 is a win.

1:04:35Fearne Cotton: Yeah. Right? And that's the key to it. So 7 plus, we're winning. You've won. Yeah. So 7 is the same as 8, is the same as 9, is the same as 10 because you've won. I love that. So you stop perfectionism in its tracks. So you go, oh, yeah, I'm going Christmas shopping. You come back, oh, I've been down to Cabot Circus and, oh, you know, oh, there's a queue into the traffic and a queue into the car park. Oh, God, and then someone stood on their foot and then blah, blah, blah. You can make a shopping trip really miserable. Or you can go, hang on, I used to do this with kids and friends. How many presents on your shopping list?

1:05:10Twelve. How many did you get? Ten. Not bad, is it? Yeah. Right, that's two marks. Well, they're playing nice music, you know, where there's like lots of Father Christmases, right? Oh, yeah, it's quite good. Right, we'll have another two there. So you can get up to seven. I love that. Really, really quickly. And then you go, seven out of ten. We played the game. that's a win isn't it you won didn't you well actually yeah and you just feel better about everything and you really can do it about everything yeah and sometimes you don't get to seven no and that's okay and that's okay last year i was really poorly really poorly and health-wise i was a one out of ten for a long time but then it started to get better i got onto the right medication so there's a two that's better than it was before that's better than it was Then when it got to seven, with health, I prefer to be a nine, but at seven, okay.

1:06:02Yes. Right. This is now acceptable. How can I make it better? Yeah. So it's like self-monitoring all the time. I love that. I love that. And it does work. Yeah. I'm going to use that. I think that's so brilliant. Yeah. Because you recognize, oh, yeah, I was ill. I was really ill. You can use it in words, but words like superlative. I was the illest. Yeah. Or I was less than the illest or I was slightly better than less than the illest. It doesn't make sense. But that simple numbering, you go, yeah, I was a one. Now I'm a three. Yeah, happy maths. I love it. Look in the mirror. What do you think you are for your age?

1:06:41Seven. That'll do. I'll give you a 10. Well, I won't give me a 10 at all. All the way. But for me, I think, yeah. All right. Scrub up. Seven's fine. It's a win. if anyone's got a problem with that it's their problem

1:06:55Fearne Cotton: exactly I agree I've loved talking to you today and you too and just keep doing what you're doing we all love you thank you Carol thank you so much and all the best to you as well thank you oh god I loved that I loved that so much this is one of those days when I recorded that chat that I just thought I'm so lucky that I get to sit down and have these curious conversations with interesting people all the time. I love it. I took so much from that chat, so much. And again, because Carol is that bit older than me, it was just so amazing to hear the lessons that she's learned in the last sort of 20 years, which I think helps a lot of us women in our 40s navigate that and also maybe fast track some of those lessons as well.

1:07:46Fearne Cotton: I loved it. Now, I know that of anyone, Carol would definitely be a strong advocate for reading lots of brilliant books. So let me tell you about the book that we're reading for the Happy Place Book Club in April. It's a fiction. It's a book called You and Me, You and Me, You and Me and it's by Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees. They're actually a married couple themselves and they've written this brilliant story about a married couple who are stuck in a bit of a rut. The concept is genius. So you've got Adam who stumbles across some old mixtapes that he and Jules, his wife, made for each other when they were younger, when they were falling in love.

1:08:22Fearne Cotton: And when they play them, they get to travel back in time to different moments in their relationship. So will remembering the passion they used to have get the future of their relationship back on track or will it cause chaos? Oh, you're gonna to love this story so much head to our book club on instagram it's at happy place book club and that is where you're going to want to be if you want to join in with the chats about this book and get obviously a load of behind the scenes stuff from the authors my thoughts on it your thoughts on it please do join the conversation there until next time then a massive thanks again to carol to the producer anushka tate at happy place studios and to you because you're bloody brilliant Thank you.

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