In an exclusive interview with HELLO! magazine, Midsomer Murders star Fiona Dolman has revealed that she has secretly split from her husband – and fallen pregnant after a brief fling with a younger boyfriend. The former Heartbeat star, 43, now plans to raise the baby as a single mother after being blessed with a pregnancy that she never thought would happen.
"It's obviously quite daunting to start this journey unplanned and on your own," she told HELLO!. "Separating from my husband, I felt the chance of being a mum had kind of gone. "It's a terrible grief when you think that's something that you so wanted to happen never will for you. "Then this happens and, yes it's not perfect, but you can't treat it as anything other than a gift. It feels like fate - I'm lucky, so, so lucky. "During the interview, Fiona reveals that she split up with assistant director Martin Curry in 2011 after 13 years of marriage, telling only close family and friends. "We'd known each other for 15 years and married for 13 of those," she explains. "There was no nastiness, just the realisation that you want something to work but it just doesn't and it's run its course -and that's terribly sad."
With the end of her marriage and several miscarriages she says, came the end of her dreams to become a mother. "At 42 it was something I'd given up on really - with our marriage ending I wouldn't have planned on having a child," Fiona told HELLO!"You do the calculations and think: 'Right, well, that's an avenue that's kind of closed for me and that's ok. Then life had a different plan..."To read more of Fiona's exclusive interview, including how she told the father of her baby, what ex-husband Martin's reaction was and where she will live when she becomes a mother for the first time, pick up the latest issue of HELLO!.See the full exclusive story in HELLO! Magazine, issue 1277, out now.