As we sit down for breakfast at London’s chic Treehouse hotel, enjoying superb views across the city, Fern Britton is just as warm and welcoming as you’d expect.
After watching her host ITV’s This Morning for a decade from 1999, it’s rather like sitting down with an old friend.
Fern, 67, has lit up our screens for 40 years, presenting shows including Ready Steady Cook and Fern Britton Meets, as well as competing on Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother. She’s also a successful author and in her latest book, The Older I Get, she writes about navigating midlife.
Fern tells us: "At this age, we’ve got 20 healthy years left, if we’re lucky, which is great. We’ve learnt so much up to this point, and it’s been hard and difficult; now is the moment we can start living our lives properly and enthusiastically."
The star, who is a mother of four – twin sons Jack and Harry, 30, and daughters Grace, 27, and Winnie, 23 – adds: "It’s our duty to our children not to worry them; not to be at home going: ‘Nobody rang today – I haven’t seen anyone for four days.’ That’s pointless. I want to be so that they can’t ever get me on the phone!"
Fern has faced several challenges in recent years, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, when she lost her parents and faced the end of her second marriage, to celebrity chef Phil Vickery.
A move to a relaxed seaside haven in Cornwall ensued, where the star began a new chapter, as she tells us here.
Fern, you talk in your book about "repowering" and giving yourself a boost. Tell us more…
"It came to me when someone was talking, saying: ‘It’s so empowering to wear these clothes,’ and you think: ‘No.’
"‘Repowering’ as a word I think is really good, and when I say it to people, very quickly they get it and go: ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’ You can use it at any age, but it’s only at this age that I’ve realised it.
"I’m not saying I am repowered, but I am repowering, and it’s making me feel a lot better."
You say that the Queen is the poster girl for repowering…
"Yes, she is. Her life has not been simple and yet she has come through with flying colours.
"She’s doing the job brilliantly, being extremely supportive of the King, and she’s somebody who is really worth listening to. She’s 77 and has been thrown into the biggest chapter of her life.
"I think it’s clever that she still has her own home, so she can go and sit in her own garden, prune her own roses, sleep in her own bed and repower there, then get back out and be the Queen."
You also write about being kind to yourself, and women aren’t always good at that…
"It’s not selfish to be ‘self-ist’. Just think a bit more about yourself.
"You don’t have to be unkind; you don’t have to cut people dead. I love all my friends, and there’s never a moment when any of us say: ‘Hello, stranger,’ if you haven’t phoned for a week. People who say that need to be dropped from your life – they’re taking your power from you.
"Fountains and drains are those people who fill you with joy whenever you see them – and the ones with whom you think: ‘I know this conversation is going to be very negative.’
"It’s hard not to be negative when you’re in a difficult place, but if you help someone else or ask someone else how they are, you will feel better for it."
Do you pass on this advice to your children?
"For sure. The boys are nearly 31 and they’re busy in their own lives, but they’re good guys. We live a long way from each other, but we speak a lot – they ask me how I am and that’s great. That’s all I need. I’d like to see them more, but that’s life.
"My daughter Grace is nursing in an emergency unit. I can’t believe how brilliant she is; I’m so proud of her. I was allowed to go to the unit the other day and met her boss, who said to me: ‘She’s wonderful with the patients; she’s so kind and caring and she’s really learning.’
"That’s my little girl; I bought her a nurse’s kit when she was five and she didn’t like it – she didn’t want to be a nurse!
"Winnie is amazing. She lives with me and works as a labourer on a building site. Then she sits at the sewing machine; she made me a jacket the other day out of a great big cotton shawl. They are very kind to me, and very thoughtful."
The Older I Get… by Fern Britton is out now, published by Ebury Spotlight. RRP £22.00.
To read the full exclusive interview, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK on Monday. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.