Kate Garraway appeared to fight back tears as she shared a heartbreaking moment with Carry On star Anita Harris on Good Morning Britain. During Thursday’s episode, Kate and her co-star, Ed Balls, welcomed Anita onto the show, who was speaking about a tribute song dedicated to her late husband, Mike Margolis.
In a poignant live TV moment, Anita took Kate’s hand as she spoke about how much she had been looking forward to speaking to her since Kate had gone through a very similar situation with the loss of her husband Derek earlier this year.
Anita said: “How precious this moment is to see you after seeing you go through everything and darling, Ed, you're wonderful for all the viewers. But for me, I was a bit parallel with you [Kate] darling, but we're not here to, we're here to bring joy.”
Kate added: ”We're not going to cry, we're not going to cry, are we? We're not going to cry because we want hope.” Anita warmly concluded their chat saying: “I hope everything's good for you and the young ones.”
Anita’s new song was to support Alzheimer’s Research UK, and help others dealing with the disease as well as those grieving for their loved ones. The singer recently marked the one-year anniversary of the loss of her husband, who died of Alzheimer’s after being diagnosed back in 2015.
A statement in 2023 confirmed that Mike had passed away with Anita by his side read: “As a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (LFRSA), creator of Catgrafıika and as creative director in advertising, Mike became Anita’s record producer (Just Loving You) and her manager in the mid-1960s.
“They married in 1973 and last Sunday celebrated their Golden Wedding.” Posting on Twitter, Anita added: “Last Sunday we gently celebrated our golden wedding anniversary. Mike gifted me with a forever love…I will miss and love him always.”
Kate’s husband Derek died in January aged 56 after suffering severe side effects from contracting COVID in 2020.
Speaking about Derek’s legacy ahead of the documentary Kate Garraway: Derek's Story, Kate said: “One of the biggest frustrations was that he felt like a total failure, he felt like an incredible burden on the carers, on the system, on us and it didn't matter what we said, he felt that burden, and he wanted to be a contributor.
“Making this documentary was his way of saying 'I'm gonna speak up for the people that have supported me, the family but also those around me and the people within the care system.’ It's wonderful to have the chance to honour him and also honour the millions. I'm sad because I don't have the chance to care anymore but I felt it would be wrong for me to sort of walk away from the caring campaign that I feel I have a responsibility for.
“Sorry to get emotional. It’s difficult because I'm trying to remove my personal grief because I think this is a really important thing that we have to tackle and gosh politicians need to get their head around it of all parties but actually we all do as a society and we have to decide what's important to us."