Fern's growing 苦痛s: the TV presenter on how she's a whole new woman

She says her mother instilled her with a love of the outdoors. 'One of my earliest memories is of sitting in the garden, in my big pram, while she tended the flowers. It's something I've always associated with safety and 慰安. When I was little I don't think I ever ate a cooked pea. We used to eat them straight from the pod.'

Her hope is that the show will bring gardening more into the mainstream. 'I mean, Gardeners' World on BBC2 is one of the stalwarts but you get people who 言及する to it and say, "Oh no, it's like オペラ, it's not for us." But if you watch it's very 使用者-friendly ? although it's 乾燥した，日照りの in the sense it 欠如（する）s that 競争の激しい element. So hopefully this is, 井戸／弁護士席, just fun. There are nine allotments growing sunflowers and, yes, zinnias and tomatoes and carrots and roses and 甘い peas and it's beautiful.'

And is she a colourful 見通し herself, in the 中央 of it? 'Oh, no. I look like a land girl.'

It's nice to see Fern 支援する on prime time, as there was a while there where it looked as if she'd disappear from TV altogether.

When she wrote her aut obiography a few years 支援する ? a very un-cosy one, too, 十分な of tales of her 地位，任命する-誕生の 不景気, a 自殺 試みる／企てる, a drink-運動ing 有罪の判決 and a 強姦 ? she was approached by her publishers and asked to try her 手渡す at fiction. Her first 試みる／企てる was an orchestrated one.

'The publishers sent a proper writer to 持つ／拘留する my 手渡す and guide me through it,' she says, candidly. It was a 商業の success, so she did another, 'on my own this time', and another. She's now 令状ing her fifth, is 契約d to produce three more, and could not be happier.

Publishing is 'a much, much nicer world' than TV, she says. She has no 願望（する） to 屈服する out of telly 完全に (hence the gardening show) but you get the impression she wants to do gentler TV.

You can see why, too. I first interviewed Fern in 2001 when she'd just been 支持を得ようと努めるd 支援する to This Morning to 報道によれば save the show after Richard and Judy's shock move to Channel 4.

A 一連の presenters had been a 災害, and Fern, who had held the fort when Richard and Judy were on holiday, was 誘惑するd 支援する にもかかわらず the fact her daughter Winnie, her fourth child and the first with Phil, had just been born.

At the time, breastfeeding Winnie and talking about how she was going to bring her の上に the 始める，決める, she said it was an 申し込む／申し出 she couldn't 辞退する.?

Fern had 抱擁する success after trying her 手渡す at fictional 令状ing and is now 令状ing her fifth novel

Now, it seems the 交渉s were a little more 悪意のある. 'They asked if I could come 支援する on a particular day and I said no, because that was the day my baby was 予定. They said, "Can't you have a Caesarean?" 井戸／弁護士席, as it happened I was going to have to have a Caesarean anyway, so the person in question said, "Oh that'll be 罰金, you'll be 支援する in a week. My wife was 罰金 after hers." I remember 説, "Really? But how old is your wife? I bet she isn't 44. And did she go 支援する to work すぐに?" Of course she didn't, she had a year off.'

That sounds like the stuff of 法廷s, I say. 'Oh, as a freelance you have no 権利s. I did get a message to say that if I didn't come 支援する there wouldn't be a 職業 to come 支援する to.' No 圧力, then.
It was her husband Phil who made the return possible. 'He said, "If I have to put my career on the 支援する burner for a year or so, then I will." And, bless his heart, he did.'

For longer than 推定する／予想するd, too. Once 支援する at the 舵輪／支配 on This Morning, Fern stayed for nearly a １０年間 ? although she 収容する／認めるs that every day was a struggle with the 'impossible' work/life balance.

When she finally walked away in 2009, she'd 簡単に had enough. 'This Morning was wonderful but I was starting to think "Yes, I think we've done this item two or three times over the last ten years."

Fern （人命などを）奪う，主張するs that any rumours that there is a 不和 between her and ex co-presenter - Philip Schofield - are 完全に 誤った

'Also, I was knackered! The thing I've only 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がるd recently about it was that I was never on my own. You get driven to work, you're at work, you get driven home, you get home ? which is 十分な of the children and the people looking after the children ? and you go to the loo, and even then? the kids come after you. I was longing for a moment where I could be on my own , and now I have that and it's really precious. I love it.'

She 行方不明になるd the 25th 周年記念日 版, 主要な to （人命などを）奪う，主張するs there was a 不和 between her and former co-星／主役にする Phillip Schofield, but she 否定するs this. 'I don't see Phillip, but that's because I'm off the train now and he's still on it. We never had that sort of friendship anyway.'

And what of suggestions that she was miffed to discover he was 存在 paid a lot more than her?

'That's just not the 事例／患者. I don't know what he was paid - but I was happy with my money. And if ITV are 支払う／賃金ing their male 星／主役にするs more than their 女性（の） ones, that's their problem.'

Did she worry about taking the foot off the accelerator, though? The image we have of a lot of our most smiley TV presenters is that they need to be on the 審査する like （麻薬）常用者s need a 麻薬. And most spend their entire careers fretting about oblivion.

Not Fern, she says. 'People never believe me, but I honestly don't have an ambitious bone in my 団体／死体. I'm conscientious. If you give me a 職業, I'll want to do it 井戸／弁護士席, but I've always known that in TV nobody's 職業 is for ever. Life changes, and I've discovered I really like change. I've never had an ego that says, "I want my 団体／死体 of work to be remembered." Everything I've done has disappeared into the ether.'

Are the 調書をとる／予約するs an 試みる／企てる to 是正する this balance? She snorts. 'If they're 存在 熟考する／考慮するd in 100 years by A-level students I'd be surprised. It's more likely that if they are read, some- one will say, "Gah, look at this bit of old stuff somebody's written. I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う they were 支払う／賃金ing for their children to get through university." Which is 完全に the way of it, but that's 罰金.'

Fern is now a keen cyclist and …に出席するs the gym 定期的に

She has the 空気／公表する of a woman reinvented - but Fern 主張するs this is more about 成熟 and 'sorting out my own 問題／発行するs' rather than 簡単に 存在 able to fit into size 12 着せる／賦与するs for the first time in a few １０年間s.

She can be prickly when the 支配する turns to her 負わせる loss and embracing of all things physical (she's a 正規の／正選手 gym bunny now, and does things like cycling across India for charity). 'But I've always 演習d, save for a ten-year period when I had the kids and This Morning and life was 十分な-on. Now I have the time for it.'

She was mortified when she was （刑事）被告 of 存在 a hypocrite after it was 明らかにする／漏らすd she'd had gastric 禁止（する）d 外科. 最初, it seemed she'd lost her famously mumsy 人物／姿／数字 by counting calories, and at the time she was 伴う／関わるd in an advertising （選挙などの）運動をする for Ryvita.

She argues she was trying to keep that part of her life 私的な. Now it seems that 演習 rather than diet forms the basis of her keeping in 形態／調整. She is teaching herself to run and has taken up ボクシング. She must 本気で want to be in 形態／調整? 'Yes, but it's not about my thighs. The real difference has been in my 長，率いる. When I'm on my bike, I can think. For so many years I didn't have time to think. I 陰謀（を企てる） my novel. I think about my day. I come 支援する feeling refreshed.'

She knows a bit about 強調する／ストレス and how it can 誘発する／引き起こす periods of 不景気. She says she thinks now that she first 苦しむd as a child. 'I was やめる a lonely child, but you don't have the vocabulary then.'

Fern with her famous actor father, Tony Britton, who she saw little of when she was growing up

What seemed like an outwardly 特権d childhood ? her father is the actor Tony Britton, and celebrities like （頭が）ひょいと動く Monkhouse were たびたび（訪れる） 訪問者s to the family home ? was 現実に very difficult.
Her parents 離婚d when she was two, and she saw little of her dad until she was grown up.

In her late teens and 早期に 20s she 苦しむd 一区切り／（ボクシングなどの）試合s of 不景気, which 最高潮に達するd in a 自殺 試みる／企てる in 1983. After her twin sons, Jack and Harry, were born in 1994 it all '衝突する／食い違うd again'. 'I had a very, very bad two or three years, when I was very, very unhappy.'

She is 'very 井戸／弁護士席 at the moment' but ever-vigilant for the 調印するs of 不景気 returning. She says the 調印するs are, for her, 'getting tired, not sleeping 井戸／弁護士席, feeling like you're invisible. You disappear into yourself and feel you've disappeared for others. Of course you 港／避難所't. What you're doing is terrifying the s*** out of them because they don't know what's happening to you.'

What's striking is that she experienced such things when she was in a high-profile 職業 ? a 職業 where she had to be 永久的に sunny.

'It was strange in a way, but work is a sa lvation and you can hang の上に that, knowing you can still do your 職業 and do it 井戸／弁護士席. There's this myth that people who have 不景気 can't 対処する. That's just not true. People who are depressed can be incredibly 生産力のある. I was.'

Fern says she's had occasion to take 在庫／株 of her life several times. One was in 1997 when her first marriage, to TV 生産者 Clive Jones (father of her eldest three children), 崩壊（する）d after the birth of their daughter Grace.

'It was an 利益／興味ing summer when I was 40. My marriage broke up, I had my 年上の daughter and Princess Diana died. I think that year had a real 影響 on a lot of women, thinking, "S***, she 行方不明になるd out on so much, just as she's on the brink of living a life she could have really enjoyed."'

She says she's discussed every 新たな展開 and turn of her own life with her children. 'Everything's explained, whether they want to hear it or not. And it's their 義務 to come to me when they're 35 and say they're in therapy and I messed them up, and I'll say, "井戸／弁護士席, you know what, I did my best."'

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