We've really enjoyed our last year together let's see what happens!'

Radio presenter Kirsty Gallacher talks love, family and fitness - and urges everyone to get on track to a live sporting event

- BEX MAY

Kirsty Gallacher is embracing a whole new chapter in life. As well as juggling a successful radio career, life as a single mum to her boys Oscar, 17, and Jude, 14, and a surprise new career move, the long-standing TV presenter has also found love again.

Her evolution comes from a lifetime of different experiences, as the Smooth Radio host, 48, tells us. “I feel like I’ve had three different lives: one in my twenties – the early time in my career, without kids, then my thirties was all career and kids, and then this new life, navigating my forties in a different place, with a slightly different career path and older kids. Now I’m not married, and making different decisions. It’s a funny thing.”

But it’s not just work and family that has been keeping the radio presenter – who last year was briefly linked to Paddy McGuinness – busy lately. She’s also embraced change by embarking on a new romance. “Darren is great,” she beams, as she opens up about her partner of a year, the ex-rugby player Darren Clayton.

The couple were introduced through Kirsty’s good friends Gabby Logan and her husband Kenny, and met as the result of a shared commitment to charity. Kirsty was doing a charity walk and bike ride for motor neurone disease, a cause very close to her heart – and the fundraiser had been organised by Darren, 38, who is also a single parent.

“I joined Kenny and Gabby on this challenge, to raise awareness and funds in memory of the great Scottish rugby player, Doddie Weir,” she says of the sporting legend, who passed away from the disease in 2022.

And there was an instant chemistry between the two at the event, says Kirsty, which saw a host of celebrities and supporters walk and cycle from Edinburgh to Paris. “You know when you just meet someone and they’re obviously good-looking, and you’re attracted to them? That was it,” she recalls with a smile. “I just got on really well with him.”