TV favourite Fern Britton is loving life in Cornwall but admits sometimes she does miss having someone special
This Morning and loneliness(Image: David Venni/futurenet)
She is back in great shape but Fern Britton is not hankering for a TV comeback or a man in her life. Instead she wants to continue to write bestselling books from her Cornwall home. At 67, it is now five years since her 20-year marriage to TV chef Phil Vickery ended, but Fern insists: “I’m not looking for love.
“I’m still a bit too wary of losing my liberty. There’s nobody to run something past but, on the other hand, I think back to running things past people and it never really worked out, so why don’t I just make my own decision? Then I’m the only person who can go, ‘I f***ed up there.’
“I’m feeling pretty good [but] it would be foolish to say I feel spot on 100% of the time. Cats are great companions but there are days when I’m actually quite lonely because sitting, writing on your own is lonely, but it’s good to admit it.”
Fern is speaking to Woman&Home magazine to promote her 11th novel, A Cornish Legacy, which centres around Wilderhoo, a fictional 1,000-year-old Cornish house that has gone to rack and ruin.
Sub consciously at least it must be slightly autobiographical as the main character was very successful in London and whose life has absolutely fallen apart. She comes down to Cornwall to take on this house and the house and the woman repair themselves together.
On her own recent health improvements and weight loss, Fern says: “People often wonder when you lose lots of weight whether you’ve done it naturally. And I can look at you and say, ‘Yes, I have.’ I had my shoulder replacement 18 months ago, and two-and-a-half years ago, when I saw the surgeon, he said, ‘I’m going to totally replace your shoulder, I’ll see you in a year.’ I
thought, ‘I need to get my life back on track. I need to stop smoking, stop drinking, get eating under control and stop lying in bed feeling sorry for myself.’ So I started the Couch to 5k, took about 80% of the sugar out of my life and started to think about what I was eating, which I had never done before.
“As a child, I just couldn’t stop eating sugar, so [I ended up with a] big sugar addiction. I never had the button that said, ‘Stop eating, you’ve had enough.’ Curiously, having three sensible meals a day – which everyone has told me [to do] for the last 60 years – actually worked!”
The only thing failing her in terms of her health is not so visible when it comes to her youthful appearance. “I’m getting more deaf. I first got hearing aids about 10 years ago [but] I just couldn’t deal with it, then a year ago I thought, ‘I’ll try again.’ I have to keep persevering and I’m wearing them today, but they drive me mad. I can’t hear anybody any clearer because I can hear all the clatter in the room louder as well.
“Taking them out is lovely, but I also know that [without them], I miss out on a lot of things and I mishear everything. I try to lip-read and that’s very frustrating.”
Fern’s slim look makes her perfect for also heading back to the small screen and more TV work in the coming years if she headed back to London. She returned to This Morning last year for a series of shorts about the British Isles. And then there is also her own ITV show Fern Britton: Inside the Vet’s.
But it seems novel writing is what she wants to continue spending the majority of her time doing in 2025 in Cornwall. On This Morning she said of the films: “They were fun but, no, I won’t be going back to do This Morning. Never go back, that’s my motto – for anything. Never look back, never go back.
“I don’t honestly watch it. When you’ve been in that wonderful place, then you think, ‘No, it’s going to change,’ and I don’t want to.” She adds: “My forefront is now being a writer and it’s taken me a long time to accept that. Gosh, yes, I can say I’m an author now!”
* A Cornish Legacy by Fern Britton is out on June 5. The July issue of woman&home is on sale May 29.