You learn who your true friends are in lockdown...and I ‘met’ an old boyfriend!
WHEN lockdown began Diana Moran, better known as the Green Goddess, could hardly have known her fitness career was to experience something of a renaissance.
Diana, 81, was self isolating at her home in Shepperton, Surrey, when BBC Breakfast asked her to share her experiences and fitness tips on air.
What producers didn’t expect was the wave of positive support and feedback from viewers and she was asked to return three times a week throughout lockdown.
“It was a happy accident in a way, but it has been wonderful,” says the keep-fit guru. “I demonstrated the simple exercises that anyone with any level of ability could do at home, and I had the most wonderful feedback. It was overwhelming.
“I have had to learn a host of new skills, all of a sudden I am make-up, sound engineer, producer and director all at once.
“It is extraordinary. If you had told me a
‘I haven’t seen my grandchildren’
couple of months ago I would be doing something like this I wouldn’t have thought it possible. It is amazing when you stretch yourself, in this instance both physically and mentally.
“If I hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have survived lockdown as well as I have done.”
Diana is famous as the host of a fitness slot on BBC Breakfast Time between 1983 and 1987. Her trademark emerald, skintight leotard gave her the moniker the Green Goddess, and made her a regular face on daytime TV.
Her popularity was in no small part thanks to her relatability on screen. Like those watching, she was a mother in her 40s, not a dancer in her 20s.
“You have more authority on TV if you are one of them as well, if they can relate to you,” she says.
“I think that still stands today. I am selfisolating, my children and four adult grandchildren live far away and I haven’t seen any of them since February. I have been on my own and I know what it is like.
“It has been incredibly difficult for the people who have been shielding, especially if they have existing health problems.
“I am lucky as I have a beautiful garden that brings me such joy, and I have been painting to help me through. My girlfriends have also been wonderful, bringing me groceries and company. You learn who your true friends are in lockdown.”
Lockdown has also allowed her to reconnect with her oldest friends, as a childhood “boyfriend” got in touch when he saw her on TV.
“I couldn’t believe it, but a gentleman contacted me after seeing me on the BBC,” she says, laughing. “He was my little boyfriend when I was between about three and seven years old, but we lost contact many
years ago. So we have been contacting each other and reminiscing, sending each other old photographs that we’ve found in drawers. It is superb.
“I haven’t seen this boy since we were seven. His name is Johnny and it is so wonderful.”
While her recent popularity is a welcome boost, Diana has never really stopped. This new chapter in her career comes after years of broadcasting and writing, and she has 14 books to her name.
Now there is a new fitness DVD, Keep Fit
And Carry On, all filmed in her home during lockdown and aimed at the nearly 12 million over-65s and 1.2 million wheelchair-bound Britons.
She is clearly passionate about fitness and health, and wants people across the country to keep moving for as long as they possibly can. As the country journeys towards an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, this has never been more important.
“When I first did my fitness training people didn’t do anything for the over-50s, so I tried to aim workouts towards them. Now I am talking to over-65s and they are still a forgotten market.
“But they need to keep fit. Whatever your health issues or physical restrictions it is desperately important to keep arms, fingers, muscles, your upper body, strong. It is amazing how much work you can do sitting down.
“I know from myself that if you are quite fit and have been lucky enough to be in good health then you can really enjoy life.
‘Money isn’t as important as health’
As you get older this is by far the most important thing. Money isn’t as important as your health.”
Diana is no stranger to ill-health, however, and one of her own “brushes”, as she describes them, was when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988. Of course, she survived and still campaigns for cancer charities today.
She maintains that keeping busy and alert is one of the key elements to ageing well, and when talking to her it is clear that she is bursting with positivity. One of her mantras is that “ageing is mind over matter. And if you don’t mind ageing, it doesn’t matter”.
But she does hope that the plight of the older generation is being heard during lockdown, adding “it’s about time too. Most have worked hard during their lives and do not deserve to be forgotten.”
The grandmother believes that the older generation are hardy and able to cope with what life is throwing at them. She has paid homage to that with the title of her DVD in it’s reassuringly green cover.
“I’m a wartime baby and that was my childhood. It was all we knew, gas masks and all that. Our generation is a gutsy generation.
“I was watching a programme recently about Bristol after the war and it was flattened.
“You would think that a bomb dropping would be the end of everything. That you would go,
‘That’s all gone now, life is finished’.
But they didn’t, us older people rebuilt and went on. Life resumed.
That attitude is needed now.
“One is utterly hopeful that is exactly what will happen when this is over. The world might not be the same, but life will go on.”
● Keep Fit And Carry On is released on Friday