CARE HOLMES
Eamonn: Ruth will look after me when I’m old
EAMONN Holmes admits to thinking more and more about growing old – and that wife Ruth Langsford will become his carer.
The TV host, 58, says the deaths of several stars prompted the musings on his own mortality.
“When you hear Dale Winton, Ray Wilkins and Eric Bristow – all men in their sixties – have died, it makes you re-evaluate your life,” he explains. “Things like what you do, how you do it and what’s left to do.
“My father died suddenly of a heart attack at 64. You think, ‘Maybe I’ve got a few things to squeeze in here’.
“I reckon Ruth will end up my carer. She’s fit and full of energy. I look at her and ask, ‘Do you ever slow down?’”
Eamonn has been married for eight years to Ruth, also 58, his co-presenter on ITV’S This Morning. And he stresses: “It doesn’t matter what things I want to do because I only like doing them with Ruth.
“She has a far younger outlook but isn’t overly adventurous on travel. So there’s no point me going to Mardi Gras or Rio’s Carnival if she doesn’t. It would be a solitary experience without her.
“I’ve gone to far-off places but ended up lonely. Ruth’s amazing and she’s who I want to be with.”
Eamonn says her run on BBC1’S Strictly Come Dancing with Anton Du Beke “put our relationship under a lot of pressure” last year. “I told her, ‘Why don’t you get knocked out?’ – but she loved it and adores Anton,” he adds.
He has a dread of loneliness in old age. “I had a very interesting chat with my mother Josephine and she was so down, saying everyone she knew is dead,” he says.
“That’s awful. It convinces me I must keep making friends, work on, stay relevant and sociable.”
He adds: “And like everyone you fear dementia. But it’s a natural thing in ageing – like hair or teeth fall out and eyesight gets worse.”
Eamonn recently revealed he wears a hearing aid – and now supports a campaign by Specsavers audiologists to encourage regular hearing checks.
This Friday he will receive an OBE, for 38 years in TV, at Buckingham Palace from the Queen.