‘I’ve learned to celebrate the positive side of change’

Despite her reservations, an escape to the country proved just the tonic for presenter Edith Bowman. She opens up about how she’s never felt healthier or happier, and why the shock of losing her job at Radio 1 gave her the determination to carve out her own success

- BETH NEIL

When Edith Bowman moved her family out of London for a fresh start in the Gloucestershire countryside at the end of 2019, it was with a fair amount of apprehension. After more than 20 years of going at full pelt since starting out on MTV in the late Nineties, the Scottish-born broadcaster was ready for more of a balance between work and life with her young sons and rockstar husband. But Bowman, 48, admits that she was also fearful about the impact living away from the capital would have on the career she had worked so hard for.

‘I thought it might stop me from doing things or make me less available,’ she says. ‘That was my big worry. But work wise, it hasn’t been restrictive at all and, especially during lockdown, I’ve been amazed at how busy I’ve been.’

Indeed, Bowman’s career is thriving, and she’s enjoying perhaps the most fruitful phase of it so far, having earned her stripes as one of the most knowledgeable and passionate film and music presenters in the business.

Last year, she hosted the BAFTAs alongside Dermot O’Leary and, among other projects, she has two successful podcasts that she’s created from scratch and a new presenting gig for BBC2’s The Great Food Festival, due to air early next year. The move to the country has given her ‘the best of both worlds’, where she regularly pops back to London but also has the quality time she’d been craving with Rudy, 14, Spike, nine, and husband, Tom Smith, frontman of successful indie band Editors.