Every woman in her 50s CAN have a love life (no husband required!)
Now 57 (yes, really!) CAROL VORDERMAN is reinventing herself as a relationship guru. Here in a very candid interview, she reveals . . .
SOME years ago the romantic comedy Sleepless In Seattle cheered middleaged singletons up no end when it claimed that a woman had more chance of being killed by a terrorist than she did of finding love over 40.
As a single 52-year-old woman there are times when it feels like I’ve got more chance of winning the Lottery and then being killed by a terrorist, than I have of finding love.
Dating in middle age can be a challenge and a chore, which is why most women I know (mostly) don’t bother.
But after spending a morning with Carol Vorderman, I feel like dusting down my Spanx, putting on a bit of lippy and getting out there again.
Carol will shortly be fronting a new programme on dating for the over 50s on the Lorraine show on ITV. And if her amazing glow and joie de vivre owes anything to a fabulous love life then, to borrow a line from another rom-com, When Harry Met Sally: ‘I’ll have what she’s having’. At 57, with two marriages under her belt, Carol is unattached and enjoying uncomplicated dating.
Over breakfast at a London hotel she tells me: ‘I’m single and, yes, I am dating. Would I marry again? Honestly, I just can’t see it.
‘I am always on the move and I have a pretty low boredom threshold. My happiness doesn’t depend on being part of a couple, I know that.
‘Ours was a generation raised to believe we had to have a man to matter. My mother actually sat me down when I was 18 and told me I should think about settling down. She told me I didn’t want to end up like Sue, a neighbour, who was “on
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that LAUREN BACALL
the shelf ”. Sue was 26!’ Carol had a brief first marriage at the age of 24 to a naval officer called Chris Mather, which lasted just a year.
In 1990 she married management consultant Paddy King, the father of her two children Katie, 26, and Cameron, 21. They were together for ten years.
‘I had a happy marriage to Paddy. It was blissfully happy and then it wasn’t. But I refuse to see it as a failure, it was just a chapter that ended.’
Her last serious relationship with British Red Arrows pilot Graham Duff, a dashing silver fox with a touch of the George Clooney about him, ended two years ago. He was 14 years her junior and 37 when he started dating a then 51year-old Carol. She admits she’d definitely date a younger man again: ‘But not too young. Forty- plus is what works for me.’
Today she tries to keep her dating under the radar and avoid being photographed in public with any suitors.
‘If I get pictured with a guy and things don’t work out it somehow looks like I’m on some endless failure trail, which is far from the truth.’
Her new dating series came about because she wanted to produce a show that delivered a realistic take on what women over 50 are looking for when it comes to their love lives.
‘I want to move on from the idea that every woman over 50 is desperate and looking for a bloke because that is not the case. Our generation is the one that had to break through so many glass ceilings. I went to Cambridge and studied engineering at a time when only three colleges were accepting women.
‘This view — which still exists — that you only matter if you’re attached to a male is nonsense. Of course, there are some women who want to find one special person, but I suspect that’s only true of about one in five women my age. A lot of them have had that and don’t want it again.’
CAROL isn’t buying my claim that there’s a shortage of single middleaged men. Neither is she having it when I suggest that a wellpreserved gent in his mid-50s is far more likely to be looking for a younger woman than one his own age.
‘I disagree. Are you saying that because you imagine that to be the case or because you know it to be true?’ she asks. I have to admit it’s the latter.
‘Great things never came from comfort zones,’ she says. ‘If you think men your age prefer younger women then let them tell you that as I really don’t think it’s true.’
One thing we do agree on is that dating was far simpler when you just went out and met someone. Carol’s celebrity status rules out online dating. ‘I’ve got some freshly divorced friends in their 40s who keep me abreast of how it all works and this whole new language you have to learn. “Hook up”, meaning onenight stand, I was aware of, but I’d never heard of “chirpsing” — apparently that means you’re dating, but it’s not exclusive.’
And what about Carol, is she ‘chirpsing’, I wonder? It seems she is. She won’t reveal more, but her social life and hobbies means she’s lucky enough to meet men the old-fashioned way and not via a swipe on a smartphone.
‘I am a big party person. I go to about two a week. Ok, I might be knackered the next morning, but so what? Life’s too short.
‘I have lots of male friends and they’ll often introduce me to one of their friends and things go from there.’
It helps that while many of us have succumbed to middle-aged spread and malaise, Carol’s va va voom figure is a sight to behold.
As a woman who can now hold a pencil between her rolls of belly fat, I want to know how she can be pushing 60 with a waist most twentysomethings would kill for. ‘I’ve always had a tiny waist and a huge bum. People only picked up on that when I was around 40.’
In fact, Carol seems to be a prime example of someone who’s come into her prime in mid-life. In her early years on Countdown her curvaceous figure went unnoticed, lost under a froth of 1980s-style frills and baggy jumpers.
‘Then Roland Mouret came along with the Galaxy dress, which was made of stretchy fabric,’ says Carol. ‘Suddenly everybody could see my shape. Big bums are very in at the moment so I’m lucky. I’ll be horribly out of fashion when they’re passé.’
Carol has the honour of being the only celebrity to win Rear Of The Year twice. The first time was in 2011, when she beat Pippa Middleton, and then she won again in 2014. Frankly, I wouldn’t rule out a hat trick. I ask
her how she stays in shape, expecting her to claim — like most celebrities — that it’s all down to yoga and meditation.
‘Oh God no,’ is the very welcome response. ‘Good luck to everyone who does it, but I’ve tried it and it’s just the most boring thing in the world. I’m not a gym bunny either. I can’t stand being cooped up inside. Walking is my thing. I try to do seven miles a day.’
She registers my horror. That’s almost a third of a marathon!
‘You don’t have to do it in one go!’ she says. ‘I love it because it’s easy and it’s free and it gets me outdoors. I do some outdoor circuit training and that’s about it. I feel the most confident I ever have in my own skin now.’
I can see why. We’re having lunch but when Carol leaves all eyes — including mine — are out on stalks as they admire her Jessica Rabbit curves.
Carol published her 28 Day Detox Diet And Beyond book 17 years ago and she still relies on the plan, which cuts out processed foods, sugar and salt whenever she wants to whittle her weight down. ‘I’m between a size 8 and 10. If I go up then I’ll lose some weight for the TV cameras.’
One dramatic change she did make was going from chestnut brunette to platinum blonde about three years ago.
So, what was that about? Re-invention? A mid-life crisis? ‘Grey roots,’ says Carol. ‘If I didn’t get my roots done every couple of weeks I looked like a skunk.’
Naturally what every woman wants to know is whether she’s had any work done, but it’s a subject that’s batted away with a firm: ‘No no, not going there.’
As a Botox dabbler myself I see no sign of a frozen face — and she’s wearing minimal make-up.
Last year she bravely went on TV to talk about her battles with the menopause. She admitted it hit her like a truck at 53 and left her feeling depressed and like life wasn’t worth living.
Today, thanks to a regime of bioidentical (plant based) hormones — a natural form of HRT — she’s feeling on top of the world.
‘I saw a man called Professor Studd who told me I had something called “hormonal depression”. You can get it as a teenager, when you’re postnatal and during the menopause.
‘So often menopausal women see their doctors and they’re put on antidepressants and that’s not what they need. Their hormones have gone awry and they need to be balanced.’
SHE says she felt the impact of her HRT combination of oestrogen gels, progesterone and testosterone within 48 hours of starting it. She’s still using it and admits she may never stop.
‘I’ve heard of women taking it well into their 80s. The thinking now is that it doesn’t have to be short term,’ she says. ‘You can take it for decades if it’s still helping.’
Today Carol is adamant that her 50s have been the best decade of her life. And I believe her. Hers really is an extraordinary rags-toriches story. Her father Tony walked out when she was a baby (they were only reunited in 2003, four years before his death) leaving Carol and her mum Jean living an impoverished life in North Wales. She still remembers the feeling of being the only poor kid at Cambridge University.
It was Jean, who died last year, who first noticed an advert in the paper looking for a woman with ‘good mathematical skills’ to co-host a new quiz show. She applied on behalf of her daughter.
Carol got the job and stayed with Countdown for 26 years. A gentle mix of spelling and maths teasers, it was hardly glitzy but became cult viewing.
As the programme became a runaway success a gender pay gap emerged — only this time it was Carol who was earning three times the amount of her male co-star Richard Whiteley.
In 2008 Carol left Countdown after she was reportedly asked to take a hefty pay cut from her £900,000 (€1 million) annual salary. Instead she built on her TV career by joining the panel of Loose Women as well as competing in I’m A Celebrity two years ago.
Now she doesn’t give a hoot. ‘You know what, I feel like I’ve had a finger pointed at me my whole life. As a kid it was for being poor.
‘When I was 39 I wore a shortish dress to the BAFTAS and there was a debate about whether it was appropriate for women of nearly 40 to show their knees. Can you imagine that now?
‘I love my life and I care little for what people think of me,’ she says. ‘I feel the most interesting version of myself I have ever been. This year has given me the best week of my life and the best summer.’
As it turns out, that’s entirely due to her passion for flying.
The best week of her life came in July during the RAF’s centenary celebrations where, as Honorary Group Captain for the Air Cadets in the UK, she attended a service at Westminster Abbey in uniform. I’m surprised to see her eyes brim with tears as she talks about the pride she feels when she wears the uniform.
Flying has been a lifelong obsession for Carol, who had wanted to join the RAF as a fighter pilot when she was a teenager, but they didn’t accept women. She earned her wings in 2014 and is adamant she will fulfil her ambition to fly around the world.
Travelling to the NASA Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to watch two rocket launches completed the ‘best summer’.
‘I am going to live to be 107. I’ve decided that. So, I am only half way through my life. When I get to 87 I might think about settling down, but definitely not yet.’
I calculate that gives her another three decades of dating — and chirpsing.
CAROL Vorderman’s My Single Life starts on Lorraine on ITV, at 8.30am on September 11.
‘If you want to date a younger man, don’t dismiss it just because it didn’t used to be the done thing. It is now!’