Tracy Grimshaw " I'm Not Crippled By Shyness"

TV’s Tracy Grimshaw has finally found happiness, contentment and a sense of belonging in her life away from the small screen. Tracy tells Michael Sheather how she is basking in the peace and tranquillity of her rural property, yet still has a good social life –and how finding love is always a possibility.

- Michael Sheather

Happiness – true happiness – has always been one of life’s most elusive desires. Sometimes, it’s transitory. Just when you think you finally may have it within your grasp, it somehow seems to melt away. Tracy Grimshaw, the long-time host of the Nine Network’s A Current Affair (ACA), has had plenty of joy in her life – and her fair share of sadness, too – but right now, she says, is perhaps the happiest and most satisfied time of her life.

At 57, Tracy is at the pinnacle of her professional game. A Walkley Award-winning journalist and widely regarded as perhaps the most incisive and tenacious interviewer on television, she is both a ratings’ winner and a role model for many in the cut-throat broadcast industry.

As pleasing as these accolades undoubtedly are – her Walkley Award for broadcast interviewing proudly occupies the top bookshelf in her sitting room – they are not the major source of Tracy’s satisfaction with life.

That has its foundation in the quieter, balanced life she leads away from the studio, on a beautiful seven-hectare rural property on Sydney’s outskirts. Here, she keeps a selection of horses, which she tends every morning after she rises with the sun. There’s also a small pack of welcoming, eager hounds, too. Yet, even her beloved animals are only a part of the equation.

“I live in paradise,” Tracy says, her legs curled up beneath her on a lounge in her front room, where huge windows give panoramic views of her property. “I love where I live. I am happy – very happy – satisfied and very grateful, too. In a way, this is my sanctuary where I’m free to be myself and just be who I am. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.