Fern Britton

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1:50Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. My guest today is someone who's been part of British television for decades. Fern Britton is one of the most recognisable and beloved faces on our screens. From Ready Steady Cook to this morning, she's entertained and connected with millions of people over the years with her warmth, humour and her extraordinary ability to make everyone feel at ease. But as many of you will know, Fern's life hasn't always been straightforward and she talks with real honesty about the journey that has brought her to where she is today. And the next chapter of her life is one she has very much written herself as a novelist who's producing work that readers absolutely love.

2:25Her latest book, A Cornish Legacy, is published by HarperCollins. It's out now and it is a brilliant read. She is a perfect midpoint guest because her story is one of resilience, reinvention and finding out who you truly are. So I hope you enjoy our warm, funny and deeply honest conversation. Let's go meet her.

3:13person. You are, you are and that's what's made you a national treasure but to get the physical, tangible hug confirmed it for me. It was when we were talking about twins, I think maybe you were pregnant or you just had them. I think I just had them. Yes, and I just had to give you a twin mum hug. I do remember that. We were standing outside, weren't we? Yeah, it was the Orangery, I think, in Kensington Gardens. Was it somewhere like that? ITV used to have those big, back in the old days when they'd spend money on things like that. Yes, the TV, the summer party. That's when it was, yes. I wonder if I was expecting Winnie anyway.

3:42You were probably Flooding hormones. There's always babies everywhere. Anyway, we are now at a very different stage of both our lives and our children. Child-free. Yeah. Are you almost child-free? Well, my daughter's at uni, so she's home a lot. But that's fine. I love having her around. And Ruben lives away from home. What about you? Yes. So my boys, one's in Hastings, one's in London. And the girls, one is in Padstow. and the other one is 50 yards from my house because she's rented our house with a housemate and they're really close so it's lovely. She said, I don't want you, if you're coming round, I want you to text me first, she said.

4:24I said, certainly, and you have to do the same for me. Oh. So you can't just pop in? No, I wouldn't dream of it, they'd have to. So she has to respect mine. Your life now is very much based in Cornwall. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you're up today. We're sitting in a studio in Soho. So how often do you get a city fix? I'd say maybe three or four times a year. Is that all? Yes, that's all. And I love it. And then it makes this exciting. It makes London very exciting for me. And I was born only down the road in Ealing. And then brought up and educated in Buckinghamshire, where we were together. but not, we didn't see each other.

5:07And Cornwall, I must say, the relief of getting on the train from Paddington, getting settled in your seat, and then you think, oh, we're going home. And that even the announcements, you know, and now we're coming to Plymouth and now we're going to go, you know, and all that. Oh, it's just lovely. You're in Cornwall on the train. What pushed you to kind of make that big change? Because a lot of people think about those big life gear changes, don't they? Yeah, they do. Well, I had the house. I've had it for 20 years. And then when Phil and I decided to call it a day, I got in the car and I didn't really know at that stage.

5:44But looking back, I did subconsciously know that I was driving away and leaving and leaving a home that was lovely, that I got it all sorted out and beautiful and gardens and all of that stuff, lovely. But Phil lives there still, so that's good. But I just left and got in the car with the cats and turned up in Cornwall and the girls followed me. So that was lovely. And I feel very almost protected, actually, there. Life up here got very intrusive for a while. And down there, nobody gives monkeys about who you are or what you're doing or anything else. And it's just, right, Fern? Yeah. Lovely. Yeah.

6:26You're right. Yeah. and that's what I love. I really do. So it was your escape in a way. Yes, in a way. It was sort of running away but I didn't realise that but I ran to the right place. You made some big calls like that in your life. I read a quote that you'd said about the end of this morning. Something happened that morning which was the straw that broke the camel's back for you and you decided enough is enough. So are you somebody who kind of takes it for so long and then rips a plaster off? Is that kind of how you deal with quite a lot of things? Yeah, I've looked, funny enough, recently I've looked back at that, yes, and I've been someone who, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, goodbye.

7:07You know? Yes, well, there's something in me that just happens. This is a very old thing and not necessarily connected to me, but I like this imagery. In a Cosmopolitan magazine, they had a thing saying, a love between two people is like water in an aquarium and it's there and it's fine but there's one tiny little drip at the bottom here and say it's we're going to say it's the woman's and her love for her husband is fine because it's got the water in you know even though it's going down just as much it's equally as much always the same exactly the time until you get to the last drop and then it's gone and it I think perhaps I might have done a bit of that I'm not saying that was my marriage because it wasn't that but um things I just fall I just happens it's empty done and do you think that some of that was in the period of life that you were in was was that kind of midlife flux and change as well would you have been like that in your no ever since I was little really ever since I was littler because there were um I grew up with my sister and my mum and not my father.

8:17He only found out when I was 55 that he and my mum were already separated and he was now living with the lady who was to become his wife. But he would come home to visit occasionally and on one of those visits, they obviously had a bit of a moment and I was conceived. So it wasn't... Three months later, of course, my mother thought, hmm, that's definitely something because in those days, you wouldn't have a pregnancy test and she thought oh um and then had to tell him and then I was thinking he was he was wonderful and charming and irresistible but this was his problem that he couldn't resist so he had to deal with that and deal with his new girlfriend who he married so it was all very complicated and I look back and think what a strange thing anyway so as a child I grew up with my mother being mother and father to me, which is very interesting.

9:12Then my stepfather came, and that was a bit more complicated because he was a tricky person. And so when I got a chance to leave school and go off to drama school, not to act, to be a stage manager. Yeah, I saw that. I was quite intrigued. Oh, it was lovely. And I loved school because school felt safe to me and I liked going to school. Home was not necessarily always quite as peaceful. You went to Dr. Charles, didn't you? Right, deputy head girl. So it's a date school. Yes, it's a good school. Yes, it's still a good school and it's not a private school. It's a grammar school. Not a private school.

9:51What do you call it? A grammar school. So I think a lot of parts of the country still have grammar schools. Other areas don't, don't they? And Buckinghamshire still has a load of really good grammar schools. Yeah, and it was wonderful, wonderful. So I was very happy there. So then off I went to drama school and worked with people who became very famous afterwards. It's just funny. Go on, some names. Well, my brains have gone, Gabby, I'm so sorry. Actresses. Anyway, so one actress who always wore a cap and a sort of big overgrown gentleman's coat and smelt beautifully of L 'Air Duton, which is a perfume three years ago.

10:28and suddenly she didn't come back after her second year, three years for acting, two years for stage management. She didn't come back for the third year and she went to make a film called Star Wars. Princess Leia. Yes. Yes. Carrie Fisher. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Isn't that amazing? So all sorts of people like that. So that was lovely. And so from there, obviously the career in... Yes, I started working in the theatre. In television and theatre. No, theatre only for a while as a stage manager and I loved it. And I loved working with actors and actresses because I shouldn't say actresses, should I?

11:06But anyway, if I was an actress, I'd be called an actress. I don't mind. But anyway, yeah, I went and we worked and would tour plays and take them into the West End, play them in for a week and then go leave them to the West End stage management and get out on the road and do another. And I loved it. And then I was given a job as marketing manager for the shows. And I thought, well, that would be quite good fun. Well, it wasn't. It was not meant for me. And so I resigned. You wrote that plaster off. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And I wrote 72 letters to radio and television stations saying, you know. And these would have been letters.

11:47Oh, they were letters. Yeah. Stamps. You know, I've got no useful experience. But it's something I can do. I can read quite nicely, send them off. 69 came back going, and they actually came back. Who do you think you are? But I did, actually I got three jobs from that. One was Radio 4 Continuity, but starting off writing the scripts, not being it. Two Valleys Radio and, oh, HTV. There were four of them actually, HTV and... That's quite a good return. Westwood Television in Devon. Right. And anyway, yes, the BBC Radio 4 one, I did get that. Lovely guy. And he rang me and he said, you know, we'd like to offer you the job.

12:34I went, oh. I said, actually, I have to tell you that I've actually done an audition for Westwood Television. And he said, that's all right. Give me a ring when they ring back. So I said, at that minute, I got the phone call. As I put that down, Westwood were on the phone. right we'd like to offer you the job oh that's right wow Jim Black his name was and I said I'm so sorry and he went don't worry let's forget if we ever spoke good luck well done it was the days when people were lovely yeah and you could pick the phone up and have those conversations so that was you in you were in the industry that was it yeah and and I think for a lot of people ready steady cook was probably the kind of big moment that they they knew who Fernbritton was I know that's weird isn't it yeah yes I only did it because I thought oh this looks fun so I had an agent at the time lovely lovely man Peter Plant who was very ill and he knew he was dying and so for all his clients he found them a nice job before he popped off oh and this was mine he rang me said right this is cookery I said oh no I hate cooking I don't do it it's a please for me okay he said look they'll put you in a car they'll take you there they'll bring you back and they'll give you a bottle of champagne I said fair enough okay went to do the audition and I there were four of us auditioning that day and we were carefully moved around the studios so no one met we didn't bump him with any yeah and I was the last one and um there was a wonderful girl she she had her cans on and she was clipboard and she came to look after me give me a cup of tea and everything and she said do you know how this program works I said no I don't she taught me all the way through how Ready Steady worked I was like oh okay uh finally did the audition sorry bump thing finally He did the audition and I was not the favourite, not at all.

14:23But the man who wrote it, a piece of Basil Gat, he came out of the empty seating where the audience would be and he said, how did you know how to do that? And I said, well, there's the girl here who just told me about it. He went, but you took it off the page. Oh, did I? But anyway. So you were a natural. The BBC didn't want me. Old, too old. Too old? 37. Wow. And anyway, Peter Basilkep, he fought for me and I got the gig. And then I said, you know, it was actually this girl, and they went, but who was her? What was her name? I said, she looked like this. She didn't exist. I don't know who the hell she was.

15:03But no one said, yeah, that was me. Nobody. How weird is that? So what was this, some kind of apparition, some kind of... No, she was real, but it was like, this is odd. I thought you were going to tell me she's since became the controller of BBC One. With Laby Nights. Yeah, yeah. No. So you enter into this new world, really, in terms of the fame that came. I know you'd done loads of telly beforehand, but you were now in a different... All in the regions. And learning in the regions, you do your apprenticeship. I always say that when I started at Sky, you may as well have sent videos out to people, videotakes, because there's so few people watching.

15:35And really, that was the perfect learning ground. And we didn't grow up with social media. Quite. People were instantly telling us what they thought. Or computers, anyway. But that's not to say we're entering into a period now in your life where there was a scrutiny on women in the tabloids and in other newspapers that was vicious and it could be very cruel. And you would go on to experience a lot of that, the kind of complete kind of focus on everything about your appearance. How did you deal with going from that life to that life? Because I think there's a very different era to even now. A very different era, yes.

16:12Well, it was very gentle to start with. And there were no problems. I was just doing a job I really enjoyed and other people thought I was doing it OK. And that's the only reason I was doing any of it. and then when you suddenly get a storm of paps at you, shouting at you and calling you strange names and I say, why don't you just... Well, you put your head above the parapet. You wanted to be famous. No, there's a real distinction. It doesn't sound as if this sounds the truth. It is the truth. I did not do any of that to be famous. I had a famous father. I didn't need to be famous. It was a by-product of the job you were doing.

16:53Yeah, and then they started attacking every single part of you, which was made very normalised. It was normalised. Everything was that. Yeah, it wasn't just you. I mean, you look back at the covers of some of those magazines and the things that they would say about people's bodies and you entered into a particular storm when you were doing, you were still doing this morning, weren't you, I think, when the whole gastro band gave thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which seems ridiculous now when you think about Exempic and things that people are doing now to help them lose weight. And I always remember watching you talk honestly about that on this morning.

17:28And I remember quoting you because I thought it was so powerful because you talked about how inside you'd always wanted to lose weight. And actually there was you had health problems, gynecological problems, which were were not helping you. Yeah. And you were so honest. And, you know, and I guess this morning was an environment where you could be very honest as well. Yeah. But that still didn't stop. But some of the, I mean, one of the particular journalists has done a similar thing about me that wrote about you. And I thought, why would another woman write in that way about a woman? It feels.

18:07And she still does write in that way. Yeah. And I had a very similar piece done about me after I'd just given birth. And all about. What did she say? That I shouldn't have been walking my babies and trying to lose weight. I should have been focusing on being. It was basically I was papped with the pram. And that was interpreted as me trying to get out and get my steps in. I mean, it's ridiculous. When you think about it now, it's ridiculous. And I sat down on my bed, I remember crying about it, thinking I can't. And then realising as a woman, actually, I don't think I can do right for doing wrong here.

18:36No. There's no winning on this particular battle, is there? No. You're either too thin, you're too fat, you're too old, you're too young. So when you can release that as a woman, I think it's a really powerful feeling. Yes. Yes, it is. I mean, that took me, that whole storm took me completely by surprise because, yeah, nobody, I told a handful of people that I didn't know it was going to work as well as it did. And I'm very grateful for that. And then I got the phone call from the newspaper saying, so I just said, oh, well, here's a little statement, put that out. And then it was just life got really, really difficult.

19:23And I wondered for all those years what had happened. Who was it who leaked it? Well, my phone was hacked. It had been hacked for 17 years. Wow. And there was nothing that they found on me. I mean, I wasn't doing drugs and I wasn't cheating on my husband. And I was picking the kids up and, you know, all of that stuff. but that's the one phone call they must have heard and that was it they thought we got her and the happy story is that then I found out and the solicitors were incredible they did all the research and rang me and said definitely I think for 17 years you've been hacked and so of course we went to court and they couldn't deny it so it was lovely because you must have wondered for a while as a lot of people who were hacked did who is this in my world who I can't trust and who is revealing this.

20:16You look at family, friends, colleagues, and that's why it was so clever because it felt so kind of, this is kind of true but also not true. Bits were right and bits were wrong. You just couldn't trust anybody. It was very, very hard. And this morning was such a huge show. And I loved it. Yeah, it was a wonderful, wonderful show. You made it look like the best job in television. It was. Yeah, and you obviously had a great time there for most of the time. How do you look back now on how things finished up for you there? I think it was probably, going back to what we were first talking about, it was the right time to go.

21:00I wasn't quite sure whether it was or not, but I just literally had had enough. And that morning I kind of had been given some kind of invitation to go. and I don't want to go into it but it was like, yeah, okay then. So I walked out of make-up and bumped into, I don't know why she was there unless she knew something was going on. I said, oh, come into my dressing room. I said, I'm going. And she went, oh, okay. And nobody stopped me. And that's when I thought, ah, nobody stopped me. Nobody said, do you want to think about this? No. It's a funny business, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But I was obviously old.

21:38And did you feel dispensable at that point? I never have felt that I'm absolutely essential to anything, no. But I thought, oh, that's that. But actually, of course, it turned out fine. I missed it for a long time. Not sadly, not crying, just thinking, oh, this is a good story. Oh, no, I can't. Oh, I could, oh, no, we're not doing that. And the day to day, I think with shows like that, when you're in every single day, there's an institutionalised feel to you. You don't realise at the time. Totally. And you become quite almost myopic about things, don't you? You don't realise that the rest of the world is carrying on turning because you are in this world within a world.

22:19Yes. I say to everybody who's about to, oh, will I lose the job? Am I going to move? What am I going to do? I always say to them, this is the finest thing you're going to do and you will definitely find a better life outside. And inevitably they do. Just change and be who you are again. It will all be all right in the end. And if it's not all right, it's not the end, is one of the great, great expressions. Yes, it is. So we find you now then in Cornwall, living what sounds like a very ideally lovely life. I mean, it's an ordinary life. But a lovely life. A lovely life, yes. And writing. Eleven novels published to date?

22:54Yes, yes. I mean, so you are now, properly, like some people produce the odd one, two books maybe. You are a writer. I mean, that's, you know, with 11 books published, you can't just say, you know, kind of, I'm dabbling in this. This is your third career? from what we've just heard there. Yeah, yeah. The Third Wind. Yes. Yeah, which sounds like something after a late night curry. Oh, I'd like one of those. So when you sit down to write novel number one, you've had lots of ideas presumably swirling around your head thinking, I could put this, you know, paper. Having left this morning, I had nothing to go to.

23:28And I'd like to say as well that there was a lot of, I don't know the story, I don't know where it came from, was that I left because I wasn't being paid as much as other people. And that is utter nonsense. I didn't know what anyone else was earning. I knew I was earning probably too much. And so I could walk away. But then it's like, oh, she would. Why would I leave a programme I loved to go to nothing? Why would I do that? Anyway, my autobiography had just come out and that went very well. and then HarperCollins, my publisher, rang and said, would you like to write a book? And I thought, oh, come on, I can write the voiceover for a script, for a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

24:13How big is a book? 80 ,000 to 100 ,000 words. What? Oh. Anyway, I was looked after for the first book, had my hand held and talked through. The finest bit of advice she gave me was, when you've written the first sentence, don't stop. because everybody wants to write, last night I dreamt I went to Mandalay, you know, all of those big openers. Forget it, just keep going, keep writing. So I did that and that went well, surprisingly. And then suddenly I got a contract, two books, three books, whatever. And here I am. I still can't quite believe it. I never quite believe that people are being, when they say nice things, I think, oh no, they don't really mean it.

24:55I can't help it. But they do because they have to buy them. I know, I know. And yes, and I have had a number one bestselling book. It's just incredible. And this presumably is your audience are with you all the way on these books. You must have a very capital. Yeah, and they grow and also men read them. And I love that. I love my male readers. Did you think you were writing for women at first or were you writing for everybody? I think subconsciously, yes. You know, you write a book that you're comfortable with and the characters that you know and recognise. and then it comes and then the more you write the more books get published the harder it blooming well comes because you want to be better you want to do it and say something and you know obviously I'm not a message writer but just this is the life we live at the moment and these are the things that happen within families and the dynamics between siblings and half siblings and all of those things it's all there and all rich and that's what we do.

25:50Well in the 30 minutes or say we've been chatting I mean you can hear the stories that have already you know kind of woven through this conversation from your extraordinary life so you've got plenty of material to draw on yeah two marriages yeah and obviously a blended family four kids two marriages and two cats moved moved for a different part of the country there's a there's a lot there even with your father and your mother as well I mean there's there's a lot going on so would you say relationships are at the core. Absolutely, because that's what binds the fabric of society. Whether it's good or bad, it's the relationship that does it.

26:26And you like writing in the present day? Yes, yeah, I do. I did write, the one that was number one was called Daughters of Cornwall and it was sort of the story of my grandmother and my mother through the wars, both wars. And that one did so well and I enjoyed the history, I enjoyed the research and I enjoyed all of that. Harder work to do all the research, was it? Oh, it's lovely, though, because when it comes up, you think, well, this is fact. This is great. You really talk about it. I love that. So tell us about the inspiration for the latest novel. A Cornish Legacy. Well, about three or four years ago, I was filming in Cornwall and we went to a gorgeous house, a big old house called Baconic.

27:05And the lady who had brought it back to life, she and her husband had worked for years restoring it. And her stories were wonderful. She was showing us around. and Charles I had probably stayed there one night and Cromwell's army had been in the acres around it firing, you know, whatever. And I couldn't get that house out of my head for a while and it just kept popping in going, hello. And I thought, yeah, maybe there's this book because Cornwall does have these hidden away beautiful houses that no one can see, but this one we could see. And I thought, that's good. Who would be there then? What would it be like having to resurrect this house?

27:42So it all came that way. so it's a girl from born in Cornwall with Cornish blood but she doesn't know who her father is she lives with her mum and her auntie their sisters and then her mum dies anyway she comes to London to find her fortune as a hairdresser I thought that would do and she's lovely and she's doing very well and then she meets a man who's an actor super charming who comes as a client to get his hair cut for a part he's playing and he starts love bombing her and because she's had boyfriends But, you know, this was very intense love bonder. And they got married. He didn't let her tell anyone, so it was a secret.

28:22Nobody knew that they were getting married. Because that would ruin his career, would it? Sorry? Would it ruin his career if he had a love interest? I don't know. It was just him. Right, OK. No, I don't think he was that good an actor. No, OK. No, I think parts that he thought were good were actually cut, you know. And then he got very... Hannah, I just Venmo'd you for dinner. Obsessed. I'm spending it right now on the lip gloss that's been sitting in my cart. What do you mean spending it right now? You can instantly spend your balance with the Venmo debit card or when you pay with Venmo at checkout.

28:53Stop. Say more. More exactly. The more you do with Venmo, the more you get. Like earning up to 5 % cash back with Venmo Stash. Get the Venmo debit card or checkout online. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max$100 per month. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. Venmo checkout, not available at all merchants. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A.

29:22At the time, there was a story in the paper, so I can't remember which one it was, but it was about how men gaslight women, the terrible things that happen within marriages, the abuse, verbal, physical, emotional, whatever. And that women, this thing that highlighted in me, that women don't recognise that this is happening to them. And it's such a slow burn. And so I thought, yeah, that would be interesting. So that's what she has to deal with. Right. And it's discomforting. But she also has a lovely gay friend called Sammy, who he's an interior designer. They knew each other from school and they've always been mates and they continue to be mates.

30:04and he becomes quite, oh, he's doing quite well in his interior designs. And she also has an auntie who's tough. In her mid-60s, she still has sex. She has boyfriends. She has, you know, all that. So Sammy, so poor old Delia, she marries this guy and then a girl goes badly wrong and he dies and he leaves her the house in his will. The house she hated. There's horrible histories there that she had. and she doesn't want it. She wants to just sell it. No one wants to buy it. It's grade two. But auntie and Jammie, Jammie, Sammy, persuade her, I think there's something we can do here. So it's just, you know, the long haul.

30:48And then does she find someone else? Someone nice and normal? Someone who's not, you know, difficult or super handsome or lots of money or, you know, just a nice person. Yeah, and she does? Or does she? We don't know. There's no wedding at the end. Okay. Do you like a happy ending? Do you like to tie up all the knots? Viewers, you see, I still say that. I owe that to readers because I think if they've gone through all of that, you want to have a satisfying ending. So they are kind of expecting it to turn out okay, hopefully, maybe, maybe. Yeah. And do you find writing about romance easy and intimacy?

31:28romance yes there's the meeting and all of that that's nice and then I put a bit of sex in I'm very careful about that because the kids go mother so I try to do that that's not too toe curly but you know sex happens in relationships so you have to do that you don't have to you might enjoy it yeah and that that yes do you have to kind of like steal yourself Today I'm writing a sex scene. A colleague of mine who's a very good commentator, his first book's out soon, and I just teased him from the very beginning about... He was telling me the premise of the story, and I said, well, there has to be some sex in this story.

32:07And he was like, oh, God, no, no, no. And then about a few weeks later he said, I spoke to my publisher, you're right. I do have to write some sex scenes. Yeah, you just have to have a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because that is real life. So are you romantically... I was going to say, are you having sex? Are you having sex? Not currently. are you are you romantically involved at the moment is there room for romance in your life um i'm not romantically involved i'm enjoying my own life i'm enjoying being able to watch what i want being in charge of the television remote i enjoy eating what i like when i like going to bed when i like waking up when i so there's an awful lot of freedom that i have to have woven into somebody else but you're not averse to the idea i'm not averse to the idea no i would love someone to ring me up and say, should we go out for dinner?

32:54Or do you want to go to the cinema? They must do. I've got lots of people. No, no, no. I have lots of lovely friends, some of whom are men, but they're generally married to my best friend, who's the wife, you know. Yeah. Two very best friends. So you're a male company, but nobody that's kind of the one that you... No, I haven't been ready before, but I'm feeling I am getting ready. Would you actively go on the apps and all that? Would you? No. No. Come on. No, so it's going to have to be the old-fashioned way, meeting somebody in a... Which is the best way. Yeah. And so that would be a surprise.

33:28I mean, yes, yes. Well, yes, who knows? I'm not closed to it, but I'm not... So my friend is an actor and he's in Beyond Paradise, which is filmed down in Cornwall, isn't it? And there's loads of romance going on in that show. So surely, I mean, that's my interpretation of what's happening in Cornwall, obviously. Oh, well, yes, there is a lot like that in Cornwall. Of course there is. Wait till the summer and the lifeguards get on the beach. Very nice to look at. Men and women, they're gorgeous. Has your attitude changed through your marriages towards potentially marrying again? Are you that romantic that you could see yourself marrying again?

34:02I guess I might be. Yes, I don't want to get married again. I don't need to do that. But someone I could care about and someone who would care about me. That would be perfect. Do your kids worry about that at all? No. And I'm trying very hard currently because I'm reaching, I keep saying this to people, I'm 70 next year. No, surely that's going to be a state occasion. Absolutely. BBC One with you all day. Just rerun Ready Steady Cooks all day. I think they should. That would be fantastic. Yeah, so what was I saying? What are they saying, the kids? Oh, the children. they don't say anything but I have decided that I'm not going to be a parent who rings up the children guilt tripping them oh I haven't spoken to anyone for a fortnight and I'm not feeling very well no no I'm never going to do that I speak to someone every day there's always something happening I have two lovely friends um one's only two doors down in the village and she's great and she started us playing mahjong on Tuesday afternoons oh fantastic yes so we have a And we play from two till four and probably push another half an hour, an hour, because we're chatting so much.

35:22That's really lovely. And I've just been enrolled, or press ganged, I'd better say, as a bell ringer in the church. And that's so much fun. Really difficult. Campanology. Campanology. Very hard work. Very difficult, but great fun. Look at my guns. Look. wow that's all from ringing bells yes fantastic i mean i know it's a pimple but you know but no it's very good and and that's great you know to do these other things with people and i'm you have to commit to it because you've got time yeah it's purpose isn't it yeah and there are lots of weddings coming up in the autumn so that's why they were running out of ringers because oh well and um i was asked the other day on sunday actually one of the bell ringers said to me um you nearly rang today with the six of us i went what he's yeah yeah because you know they'd seen us doing our practicing i said yeah yeah yeah go be prepared you're close you're nearly nearly in the team but it's nearly but i mean it's so hard that's amazing i love i love the idea that you're on the bench but waiting to be called up for the start um training too yeah any other exercise that you like to do i love running when i say running i'm not a sprinter but i'm moving around and Actually, today in London, I went running and fell over.

36:36Look, that's that one. It's a dangerous city. No. Yes. I just went, ooh, got up, kept running. Did you keep on a pavement or something? I don't know. I just stumbled. Oh. Where were you? Up near Warren Street. Did somebody pick you up and say that it's National Treasure Fair in Britain? No. Not at all. I picked myself up and just thought, oh, you better carry on. So I carried on. It's dangerous, this city. You want to get yourself back down to Quarren Wall. Exactly. I'm not used to pavements. It's hard cycling in your part of the world, isn't it? Very. Yeah, that's one of the downsides of Cornwall, those huge hedges.

37:09And when I'm in a car, because I love cycling, I think, I'm too scared to do it around here. But the beaches for running. There's lots of cycle routes all the way around. Oh, are there? Yeah, but they are hilly. Yes. You'll like this. When I cycled from John the Great Salon's End, thank you. Caught that. 1 ,100 miles, thank you. It was Cornwall that was the worst. Yeah. You think it's Scotland. Absolutely. we were completely going the wrong way because also the prevailing winds if we'd gone up we'd have been a lot better it's actually better the other way yeah there is well Kenny cycled from Edinburgh to Paris actually but so he didn't go through Cornwall so I went down through I joined him down in the south yeah so when you get through to Hampshire and to Kent yeah yeah which is still hilly I think everywhere's got hills around the UK hasn't it so could we ever see you back on our screens do you think doing anything or is that oh well actually I've just shot a little series the second series actually of the programme called Inside the Vets Inside the Vets and so the last one was last summer this one we've just finished it it's in the edit it'll be ready for the summer for ITV nice and it's lovely it's a little oh god brains my brains don't get old I'll tell you that an independent vets in Bristol we work in and it's just such a lovely environment and the animals and I thought I'd be a bit creeped out with the operations and things.

38:34Now I blooming love them. I'm right in. Right, what are you doing here? What's going on? It's sensational. I see everything inside the dogs and the cats and, you know, I can circumcise. No, not circumcise. Dogs don't need that, do they? They need, what do they need? Circumcision. No, see. Our dogs had it recently. The chop chop. Yes, yes. Castration. Castration, thank you. so if ever you needed any castrating done I'm very good at that and then you also have to pluck out all the hair round the bollocks with your fingers and then get that right line and slip slip very good I'm very impressed because I could see you doing something like Celebrity Traitors I could see you up in Scotland in the castle I think people think I'm a bit of a fool no I think you'd be great on something like that you did Strictly, no other reality TV to date Oh, I did Big Brother.

39:31Oh, of course you did. Big Brother was not so... I'd forgotten myself. Yeah, you did. How was that? Weird. Really weird. As much fun as you thought it might be? It was a challenge. More of a challenge than you thought it was. Yes, absolutely. And I didn't dislike it. It was okay. But it is a very emotional time, and I'm embarrassed that I cried so much. But it was just that when you get into the diary room, Big Brother is so nice to you. You think, oh, don't be nice. Not that it's horrible outside, but just more tricky. You're missing your loved ones, I imagine, as well. And that's the first kind of connection.

40:08Yes. And the weird thing was, because I was up for every eviction, desperate to get out. And my agent sweetly, he said to me before we started, he said, right, I've been thinking about you and I want you to accept this. You're not going to win. And you might be the most hated person in the UK, the most loved person in the UK. or just, meh, that'll be it. I went, okay, that's fine. Thank you for letting me know. And he was right. I was up for eviction every week. And every week, unbeknownst to me, my daughter and my best friend were behind the walls looking through the camera traps. And they could have gone like this.

40:49And I was there and I had no idea they were there. Every time they were there. Of course they were. But that's weird. Yeah. And then when she went off, we all... And we don't get to see them. No. So perhaps not really looking out for any more reality TV then. Does that scratch the edge? I would agree. Although the traces would be fun. You're quite right. Yeah. Nice to spend a bit of time from Scotland. And before we go today and finish our chat, I meant to kind of weave this into our chat about telly earlier on. So I wonder what you think of, obviously your old colleague Philip Schofield left this morning and a lot of high profile men have left a lot of jobs in the last five to ten years because of, and I don't want to minimise or trivialise what they've done at all.

41:31Some of them are legal, some of them are not legal, some of them are resignation, some of them are sackings. Bad behaviour is a kind of group way of describing them. When you were in television and you were working in that environment, not specifically him, but did you think that there was a power imbalance in TV?

41:56well there were pockets of it yes not not not spread throughout the whole thing but there was yes i think one of the high ups he was um he didn't like women very much and was always going for the for the boys you know except if someone was pretty so then that would be now we need something for the lads you know that sort of thing which there were pockets of that yeah did you feel you could ever speak out or was your it's a long time ago now it feels like you know it was 15 years i think since i left this morning it's a long time um do you think i don't think anyone was listening i don't think anyone was listening that it was powerful enough that the yet the i don't know what you call it the atmosphere was powerful enough to think oh and then I was already into that situation where every newspaper ladies magazine you know all those books hello goodbye hello shift and shite you know they're all I always had me on the cover with something horrible you know so I was a bit sidetracked you were worrying more about your world at the time well yeah I think so well especially for the kids because they were terrified you know we couldn't go out to the weekend without a big in those big lenses the Pats have.

43:19It might as well have been a gun. You feel like you're being shot. So they were all creeped out by it as well. And they had to deal with journalists on the front door. And it was a very difficult time. So what else was happening, really, I just thought, well, this is the way life is. Do you think it's a positive thing, though, that it seems... Better now. Yeah, that there's definitely been a concerted kind of effort in the last few years to take accusations seriously. Yes, thank goodness. Thank goodness, because you can have a bullying woman as well as you can have a bullying man, and those things do happen, and you've got to...

43:58What interests me is that some of those men who have had to leave are rebooted, brought back. That's all fine. It's all right. It's just boys being boys. the women out dead yeah and that's you know you can't think of any other ones that's have been off to be rehabilitated rehabilitated do you have many friends left in tully that you could yes yes a lot of uh a lot of them from this morning actually we're still all in contact and we have a little cycling group and one of them is in that cycling group and we go uh we're going to France this year so that's nice still cycling and still in contact obviously with people who are still working I told a makeup artist I worked with Liz that I was doing today and she sends her love, she did a lot of work with you I think.

44:55She has done, she's lovely very very good and people only ever say lovely things Really? Yeah, true I know, you don't sound surprised, Fernbritton Yes, well that's another thing, Fernbritton that's such a strange name, it is my real name but it's very hard to sometimes to be able to say your own name do you find that yeah I do I do yeah it's very hard I don't know why that is yeah but it is but it is so my children call me Fran Brightman which is much better they've got different surnames uh three of them are Joneses and one of them's a Vickery yes and then of course at school they had your mum's Van Britton why you called Jones you're just lying you know all that stupid stuff and I love that They all try to play it down, which is perfect.

45:40Yeah. Well, you've given them the wings and the freedom to have great lives. Well, I hope so. In the spotlight. They're good. Well, I'm glad your life sounds like it's on a really good track as well. It sounds like you're in a good place. I said this earlier to somebody. I feel that I've been through many storms. And although the wind may blow a bit in this next chapter, whatever that is, I'm never going to be in a storm again. What a lovely way to end. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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