FERN BRITTON ON
SHE turned 60 last year but there was a point when Fern Britton didn’t think she’d live to see that birthday.
The previous summer, following a routine hysterectomy, she developed sepsis – and then pneumonia and a collapsed lung – and was at death’s door.
She said: “It was horrendous. It was the worst thing physically that’s ever assaulted me. I had a hysterectomy and, unfortunately, within three or four days, I started to feel very ill with tremendous pain in my abdomen, which would then go everywhere.
“I was extremely fit, thankfully. But I was very close to dying.”
The experience has made her approach life differently.
Fern, who was in hospital for weeks afterwards, explained: “I’m very grateful. I’ve always counted my blessings but I got through something that was absolutely horrific. At one point, I knew I was going to die, I just knew it. It was wonderful to wake up after the second operation and find out they’d done what they could.”
Today, she is full steam ahead on the work front. Her new novel, Coming Home, about a woman returning from India to Cornwall to face the music after deserting her two kids when they were young, has just been published.
And she’ll be going on tour this August with Calendar Girls: The Musical – but is playing a character who doesn’t take her clothes off.
“No one will be exposed to my t**s,” she laughed. “When the call came, I was prepared to say, ‘Yes, I would take my clothes off ’, but then I was told I wouldn’t have to and I was quite relieved.
“But funnily enough, I probably would have, because they do it so well. Nobody sees anything. It’s hilarious. Women of a certain age taking their clothes off and going, ‘To hell with it!’ Why not?
“That’s another thing about getting older. You think, ‘Oh, sod it! I don’t care if people laugh at me or if I fail. I don’t care any more’. When you are given an opportunity and you think you can do it, give it a whirl.”
Fern – who has been in broadcasting for nearly 40 years – started out in TV when the industry was awash with male executives. In the wake of the Time’s Up and #MeToo campaigns, she reveals that during her career she too has