Matt and I never discussed wages but I assumed that we were paid the same
ALEX JONES ON WORK AND HOME
They share the same sofa five days a week, doing exactly the same job on The One Show. But sadly for Alex Jones, it may be one job title, but it is two entirely different pay cheques, with her sidekick Matt Baker earning around £50,000 more.
Alex only discovered she was a victim of the BBC’s gender pay gap when it published the salaries of its top earners earlier this year. Alex was in the £400,000 to £449,000 bracket, while Matt, 39, was a grade higher on £450,000 to £499,000.
She says: “Matt and I have never discussed wages, but I assumed we got paid the same. I was quite shocked. I guess everybody else was.”
The discrimination was hard to take, but 40-year-old presenter Alex has had other things to worry about this year.
She gave birth to her son Teddy in January, and returned to work just four months later. She is even taking on new projects, writing a book and hosting a new television show.
She says: “It is amazing what you can manage when you become a parent. You can achieve a lot more. Before, I don’t know what I was doing. Sitting around, wasting time.
“Now it’s more focused. I get a lot more out of life now that we have Ted. He pulled us into line.”
Alex had feared she would never get pregnant naturally after discovering her own mother had gone through early menopause, aged 43.
Last year, Alex filmed a documentary about fertility, but then a few weeks before the show was broadcast she announced she was pregnant.
She would like another baby with her insurance broker husband Charlie Thomson, whom she married in December 2015, but she worries it will not be so easy a second time.
Alex says: “It’s one of those things. There is no way of knowing. I have every sympathy for people who go through it and have to go down the IVF route.
“Having lots of friends that have been through that, I have every sympathy with them. You just don’t know.
“It was easy the first time. Will it be as straightforward if we decide to have another baby? Who knows.”
Alex was 39 when she had her first child, nine years older than the average first-time mum. And she says that while it is only natural to worry about fertility after the age of 35, there is an element of ertility remongering. s “scaremongering ”. dee ping ”.She says :“Everybody knows your fertility goes down with age. That is a biological fact.
“However, I do think there is an element of scaremongering. There are also a lot of cases, like myself, where there is a history of early menopause.
“Who knows ws if we try for a second baby whether it would be as straightforward ward again.”
Alex, who joined The One Show from Welsh language channel S4C in 2010, replacing Christine Bleakley, kley, has enjoyed a hugely successful sful career as a TV presenter and feels that women should not be judged for waiting to start a family. ly.
She says: “I don’t think anyone puts off having children chilpose. on purpose. It’s just circumstances. s. People meet a bit later. Anybody nybody who does want a family and hasn’t, should ld not be labelled as ‘career areer girls’, it’s because they hey haven’t met the right person. “And why wouldn’t you have ave a very successful cessful career r while you’re waiting for that at person and children hildren to come e into your life? l i fe? These e days you can an have both.”
Alex ex does does indeed d have both and is busier now than ever ver before. Her new TV show, The Secrets In My Family, starts s next week on the he W channel. It brings rings families together ther that have been een torn apart by rifts and circumstances. umelp
With the help of experts and DNA NA tests, the show lets people dig deep into family ily histories.
Alex says: “In n each contributor’s contribue case there is a secret in their family, as the title suggests.
“It can be a really complex secret, a really dark secret cret in some cases, that is the reason why y certain family members have been kept pt apart.
“It’s a bit like ke a detective story. Some of the mysteries eries were solved quite quickly, others s took months.”
Alex believes es we all harbour a deep- deeping”.
It’s amazing what you can manage when you become a parent ALEX JONES PRESENTER OF THE ONE SHOW
seated desire to know where we come from. She says: “Ancestry is the second most searched word on the internet. “I think all of us want to know what piece of the jigsaw made us. Everybody has an interest in knowing who they are.” Alex herself was born in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, south west Wales. She is very close to mum Mary and dad Alun, but this Christmas will be her first away from them as she is spending the holidays with Charlie’s family in his native New Zealand. Alex says: “It’s our first hot Christmas. Or Charlie says it’s hot, but every time I’ve been to New Zealand it’s been cold.” Alex is also putting together a parenting book called Winging It! A Survival Guide for New Mums, drawing on her own experience and other stories from older parents. She says: “It’s just a look at how society is changing slowly. People are having children later.”
Alex believes being older has made her a better mum. She says: “I strongly feel I wouldn’t have been n the same mother 10 years ago because I was still building my career.
“Also, fundamentally, I hadn’t met Charlie, so that’s a big thing.
“But I wouldn’t have had the patience with Teddy that I do now. I might be a bit more tired now, but then I was still scrabbling around working on my career, whereas now I feel I am reaching the peak.”
Alex admits it was “hard to take a step back” after getting pregnant because the industry is so fickle. She says: “For me it was very clear because my main aim in life was to have a family at whatever cost. So I would never have not had a baby, but of course you do have a job, you have to pay a mortgage and you have to balance both.”
Teddy is almost a year old now and Alex says: “It’s getting a bit easier, Teddy is getting a bit older.” And because she does The One Show in the evening, she has h mornings at home.
Alex says Charlie is a great g dad. She says: “Dads aren’t a given enough credit. It’s I all about the mums, but I think they play their part.
“When two people are working w full-time it has to be that way. It’s really 50%. He H adores being a dad and it’s i changed him in all sorts of o ways and changed him for f the better. It’s also changed c our relationship for the better. “You learn to become a team more than ever. When you look at a little baby you’ve both created, you can’t prepare for that. It’s cemented our relationship.”
The Secrets In My Family, Monday, November 6, 9pm on W.