Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Lorraine Kelly: ‘I’ll always come back to city — it’s home’
And until late last year, Lorraine Kelly was also one of Dundee’s most famous residents.
But now she’s put her sevenbedroom home in Broughty Ferry on the market, relocating to Berkshire, just outside London, with her husband Steve Smith and their new dog, Angus, a border terrier.
Lorraine said: “It’s really about downsizing. The house was too big for just two people, and it’s a really good time for us to be living close to London.”
Another reason for the move was Lorraine’s daughter, Rosie, 23, who is currently working for a children’s charity in Singapore. Lorraine said: “I miss her like crazy but we’ve had a great excuse to go and visit her.”
With Rosie overseas, new opportunities also presented themselves.
For the first time in her career, Lorraine can currently be seen hosting a primetime Saturday night show — Wedding Day Winners — alongside comedian Rob Beckett.
The programme sees two betrothed couples play for the chance to get married in front of the nation.
“It’s unashamedly bonkers,” Lorraine said. “Rob and I don’t pretend it’s about anything else than having a laugh, but then at the end you get this very emotional moment when two people actually get married, and that makes it special.”
Lorraine said she would still be a regular visitor to Dundee.
She said: “I could never not come home.
“I still have family up there and, of course, I’ll always support Dundee United, for my sins.”
Born in Glasgow in 1959, Lorraine’s love affair with the City of Discovery began back in the 1980s.
Her future husband Steve, a cameraman from Lochee, took her to her first match at Tannadice in 1985. The presenter has been a die-hard Arab ever since.
She added: “It was Eddie Thompson, the old Dundee United chairman, who said: ‘you can change your job, your wife and your car, but you can’t change your team’.”
There’s little reason to doubt her commitment to the Tangerines — long-distance travel has been a feature for much of Lorraine’s career.
For seven years, she boarded the Sunday evening flight from Dundee to London, living in Kensington during the week, before flying home at weekends.
“I don’t think people realise Dundee has an airport, and I really think we should make a bigger song and dance about it,” she said.
“But the travel never bothered me. I never wasted that time. I’d either write one of my newspaper columns on the plane or do some research for a story.”
Lorraine is also looking forward to seeing the new V&A Design museum open in Dundee this year.
“When I was rector of the University of Dundee (from 20042007) the V&A was just an idea,” she said.
“But now you cross the bridge from Fife and you see the museum and the Discovery — it makes me really proud. You’ve got the Washington Post calling Dundee a top city to visit. It’s just absolutely brilliant. Maybe I should get a job at the tourist board!”
SHE’S been a mainstay of British daytime television since the mid-1980s.