'I can't turn the clock back'

Single life on the Cornish coast is sweet for Fern Britton, who insists she's not returning to This Morning and reveals how making time for herself has made her happier than ever

- Mitya Underwood

Daytime TV legend Fern Britton says she is in the best place ever as she focuses on learning who she is without her ex-husband and children by her side.

Fern, 66, has opened up about moving on from her 20-year marriage to This Morning chef Phil Vickery, and finally living life on her own terms.

She says a “whole other world has opened up” now that her grown-up children have left home and she’s a relaxed single woman again.

And while she doesn’t totally rule out finding love in the future, she has no plans to return to This Morning, which she presented for a decade from 1999.

“I don’t think I’d be able to turn the clock back, it wouldn’t work that way,” she told Good Housekeeping magazine. “My time at This Morning was marvellous and I adored the 10 years I was there, but I feel you should never look back.”

Fern began dating cook Phil, 62, a year after separating from her first husband, telly executive Clive Jones.

At the time she was a mum-of-three – sharing Grace, now 26, and twins Jack and Harry, 29, with Clive – and speaking in 2016, Fern said she didn’t think anyone would want a “40-something woman with three kids”, before a work colleague told her Phil fancied her.