‘I'm now happy in MY OWN SKIN'

Fern Britton reveals why she’s happier following her split from Phil Vickery earlier this year

- RICHARD BARBER

There’s no denying Fern Britton is a formidable woman, having been a big TV star since 1994, when she first presented Ready Steady Cook, and going through a public split from TV chef Phil Vickery this year.

The 63-year-old tells us her grandmother was just the same: ‘She was strong and independent – which she needed to be to have had a baby out of wedlock back then, and then hide him away in Cornwall. She then moved to a rubber plantation in Penang with Ernest and produced three more children. As I say – formidable.’

Fern’s mother Ruth brought up Fern and elder sister Cherry single-handedly, as their father, actor Tony Britton, walked out when Ruth was pregnant with Fern. It’s unsurprising, then, that Fern’s new novel Daughters of Cornwall is a sweeping saga following the stories, spanning a century, of three generations of women, many of them from her own family.

The effect of her father’s absence in Fern’s childhood rippled down through the years. ‘Any insecurities I have can be traced back to losing my dad when I was a baby. There was no father on whose lap I could climb, no male role model who could give me a cuddle and make everything right with the world.’