‘I'm now happy in MY OWN SKIN'
WOMAN'S WEEKLY|August 04, 2020
Fern Britton reveals why she’s happier following her split from Phil Vickery earlier this year
RICHARD BARBER
‘I'm now happy in MY OWN SKIN'

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.’

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