I lost my mum to cancer but she didn’t want me to wallow in grief... and Pride of Britain gives me hope
CAROL MOVES ON AFTER BEREAVEMENT PAIN
For Carol Vorderman, the past 12 months have been tough. She’s not a crier by nature, but her eyes grow watery when she concedes it has been a “different kind of a year”.
It has been for the world. Brexit, Trump, terrorism, Grenfell Tower’s fire – we have been shaken to the core. Against that grim backdrop, Carol has lost three people incredibly dear to her.
Two days before Christmas her good friend and 2006 Pride of Britain winner, British astronaut Piers Sellers, lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, and today is the funeral of her friend Mandy Berry.
Carol said: “My good friend Mandy Berry was a PA to my manager John Miles for 42 years, and I’ve been with them for more than 30 of them. She died in a horse-riding accident two weeks ago. We’re all going to miss her terribly.”
And Carol’s world was truly rocked in March when her beloved mum, Jean, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The pair had lived close by, or together, since her twenties and Jean passed away just three months later in June, aged 89.
But Carol, 56, insists she refuses to lose her optimism, or to bring down her children, daughter Katie, 25, a scientist, and son Cameron, 20, a university student, by dwelling on her loss. She is determined to keep looking forward.
“My role isn’t to maintain some shrine, and neither would I want my children to about me. It’s a positive thing. Life is about here and now, that’s all we have. It motivates you to enjoy today,” she says.
“Mum said she was very happy, she had had a great life. I took my lead from her, and since her death I recognise my kids take their lead from me. If I’m wallowing and telling Nana stories endlessly, that doesn’t help. It doesn’t mean you love anyone any less. I’m not a wallower, I’m a now we move on to the next bit.”
A big impetus for her positivity is the inspiration she draws from those extraordinary people she meets through the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards in partnership with TSB.
The awards, which reward ordinary people for their selflessness, courage and feats, will be the 19th she has judged and hosted at Grosvenor House in London.
It means more to her than ever. “It is uplifting for me,” she admits. “Bad things happen all the time so we have to protect the good things. I made the most of my years with my mum, and I’m going to make the most of my years with my children as their mum.”
She believes the nation will take extra special comfort from this year’s awards.
“We should always remind ourselves of the good. Pride of Britain is needed most years, but this year… these people give you hope.”
It was Jean who helped to catapult her
to fame aged 21, when she forged her Cambridge engineering graduate daughter’s signature on an application for Countdown, hosted by Richard Whiteley.
The move launched a 26-year career on the Channel 4 game show and she became one of TV’s biggest stars.
Jean raised her family in North Wales as a single mother, and they had very little money. When Carol found success, she employed her mum, and remained by her side until the very end.
Carol, a pilot and honorary RAF Group Captain, was in rehearsals for a round-theworld solo flight – attempting to become the ninth woman in history to complete the feat – when Jean became unwell.
She had been in Iceland and returned to Bristol. Carol recalls: “A few days later she was crying with pain, I said I was taking her to hospital. In 24 hours we had the diagnosis she had multiple tumours.
“She said she didn’t want any treatment. She didn’t want to go through that. She was on morphine from that moment. They said it was a number of months.” Jean had battled kidney cancer and melanoma before, and the star says they had had discussions about the end, which brought her to an acceptance.
Carol says they had said everything they needed to. Even so, Jean left her a letter, which she could not bring herself to read. Today, she finally has, but insists while a comfort, it was not necessary.
“You know what you know,” she says, softly.
“No one else has to qualify it. You know if you loved someone, you know if someone loves you. You just know. If you trust that you don’t need more evidence. I knew what my mum thought of me because we lived it.” Carol put her round-the-world mission on hold, but now her attention is beginning to turn to it again.
She has also begun a relationship with builder Cas Neill, 49, a family friend. “He has been a good support,” she says.
But mainly, she takes her cue from the exceptional people she has known, such as her mum, and all those she meets through the Pride of Britain Awards – particularly her late friend, Piers.
“When they gave Piers a number of months to live, he wrote an email and it was just very funny... you know, ‘I’ve got this news but there are some advantages... now I can park wherever I like – and I don’t have to worry about my pension now!’.” she recalls, with a smile.
“He made light of it. He was just an exceptional person,” she says. “All the winners, they really are just all-round exceptional people.”