Victoria Derbyshire: Violence. Cancer. The sack… how I learned not to be angry
Cancer. Abuse. The sack. Victoria Derbyshire has been through a lot – and perfected the power of positivity. Here, she explains why there is no point being angry if life throws you a curveball…
Say the name ‘Victoria Derbyshire’ and you think: the woman on the BBC, current affairs, successful presenter – and that is all true. But her personal life hasn’t been quite so plain sailing.
She was brought up by an often-violent father, Anthony, who was free with his fists and, shockingly, once even threw hot soup over the schoolgirl.
Her mother fled the family home with the kids when Victoria was 16 – and she never saw him again. ‘He’s not a part of my life. When he was in my life, it wasn’t very nice.’
Since then, she has come through cancer treatment – chemotherapy and a mastectomy.
And she admits to being ‘gutted, demoralised and crushed’ when her show was axed at the BBC.
But there’s one thing Victoria never is – angry about the cards that life has dealt her.
Now 52, the mum-of-two is determined to simply enjoy every second of her life because ‘we don’t know how long we’ve got’.
Rather than dwell on the past, she said, ‘I want to say yes to everything. I just want to have the best time with my family and friends… I want to feel like I’m living every second, because we don’t know how long we’ve got.’
Originally diagnosed six years ago, aged 46, Victoria feared she might not live, and had the heart-crushing thought that she might not see her boys grow up – at the time, her son Oliver was 11 and Joe was just eight – or grow old with her husband, Mark.
She recalled thinking, ‘I don’t want to die.’
Thankfully, five years ago this Summer, the journalist was told there was ‘no evidence of active cancer’ in her body. Her husband threw a party, with a cake bearing the words ‘ Victorious Victoria’.
Since then, she has made the conscious decision not to ‘waste any time worrying’ about the next scan – and enjoy life.
She certainly did, marrying Mark shortly after, and returning to TV after the axing of her own BBC chatshow last January, to host an innovative live news show on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
Answering her furious son, Oliver, one night, about why she wasn’t angry, Victoria said, ‘Anger is a really destructive emotion and I need to concentrate on getting better… I never thought “Why me?” It’s a waste of time and energy.’
That attitude, she explained, is because she has seen the effects of anger up-close, in her father. ‘It’s horrible. I was never going to be like that.’
It seems so deeply unfair that through illness, Victoria had to channel her resilience, yet again, with the Big C. But her innate positivity shines through. Her simple take on where she is right now? ‘So far, touch wood, I’m really bloody lucky.’
Victoria Derbyshire, you are one incredible woman.
‘I want to feel like I’m living every second’