'I'm never saying sorry again for being happy'

Presenter Gaby Roslin reveals how her positive outlook has helped her through adversity and shares how we could all benefit from spreading the joy

- OLIVIA DEVEREUX-EVANS

CHEER LEADER

Talking to Gaby Roslin is like switching on the sunshine on a rainy day. For more than 30 years the presenter has been bringing her trademark smile and infectious energy to our TV screens, and now she’s hoping to help us all find happiness.

As she settles in to chat about her upbeat new handbook, Spread The Joy, due out next week, 59-year-old Gaby admits that while she’s had to battle with her share of heartbreak, grief and “deep sadness”, being “unapologetically happy” has also helped her through the darkest times in her life.

So passing on her own life lessons felt like a good way of helping people who may not find positivity as easy to come by.

Full of practical tips, advice and exercises, from wearing a pop of colour to simply gazing at the sky, Gaby maintains that there are hundreds of simple ways of turning bad days into good ones.

And while she admits she doesn’t have first-hand experience of mental health struggles, she has been there to support friends who have.

“I do my best to help other people, but it is not something I’ve had to cope with,” she says. “I do think people use the words anxiety and depression too readily, though, and I think we have to be very careful how we use those words.

“It would be completely fake of me to say I’d never felt those emotions, but I’m incredibly lucky to be able to be positive about things, and that’s helped me through.

“Journalists have asked me my whole career how I’m so happy all the time and I used to tell them, ‘Yeah that’s me, I’m so sorry.’”

Losing her mother, Jackie, to lung cancer in 1997 was a particularly difficult time for Gaby. Jackie was still only in her early sixties when she died.