I turned to booze to cope with Mum’s death, says Fern
FERN Britton has revealed that she turned to alcohol to numb the pain after her mother’s death last year – admitting it was her ‘way of coping’ with the grief.
In an interview, the 61-year-old opened up about how she has struggled to come to terms with losing her mum, Ruth.
She said: ‘I’m finding it very difficult to accept that my mum is no longer here. I still can’t quite believe it because she’s so very present in my mind.
‘I can still hear her in my head, I dream about her and the dreams are so vivid. She’s always telling me off about something.
‘The grief hit me the day her ashes were scattered. As soon as it was over, I thought, “I just want to sit and drink gin and go to bed,” and that’s what I did. I woke up with a terrible headache,
of course. I’m not ashamed to say it because we all have different ways of coping.’ The former This Morning presenter, who is married to TV chef Phil Vickery, is now an author and about to release her eighth book, The Newcomer. She told Prima magazine: ‘I did some bonkers things in the immediate aftermath [of the death] – you do when you’re in shock. I booked a cruise on the Queen Mary 2, on my own. I cried a lot in those two weeks, but I also wrote a lot, and I found that very soothing.’
She added: ‘One thing that really helps me is therapy.’
Miss Britton announced her mother’s death on social media last year in a post which read: ‘My mum. Ruth. Both mother and father to me. Funny, ferocious, and a woman once met, you couldn’t forget. 24.1.24 / 17.4.18. So brave and uncomplaining. An army sergeant WW2, beauty queen, teacher, and all woman.’
Her mother raised her and elder sister Cherry single-handedly after her father, actor Tony Britton, left. Now 94, he lives in Denville Hall, a retirement home for entertainers, in north London.
The full interview is in the April issue of Prima, out today.