Richard Arnold and his mum!
GMTV presenter Richard Arnold tells why taking his mum to Paris, and dropping in on the marvellous Orient Express, meant the world to both of them
When the opportunity arose for Richard Arnold to go to Paris and spend the day on the original Orient Express, there was only one person he wanted as his plus-one – his lovely mum, Dot, who turns 81 in a few months’ time.
“She’d never been to Paris for a start and was very, very excited about going,” he says. “I was just as excited to be taking her. We had dinner together in a little bistro near the Louvre but the Orient Express experience the next day was a fabulous added extra and something very, very special.” The trip had been arranged to coincide with the DVD release of the blockbuster film, Murder on the Orient Express starring, among others, Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi Dench. “Mum and I are both big fans of the film and TV adaptations of Agatha Christie stories. We’ll quite often ring each other and discover we’re watching the same ‘Joan Hickson’ Marple or ‘David Suchet’ Poirot on ITV3.
“It was a wonderful day for both of us – I’m a big fan of anything Art Deco and we were both overawed by the beauty of the train. We had such a laugh together – not least when I had a Kenneth Branagh ‘Poirot’ moustache applied. Mum wasn’t keen on having one herself! I loved it when we sat
down in the restaurant car for breakfast with a wonderful array of pastries and she said, ‘Oh this is lovely but I thought we were going to have a glass of wine to go with it!’ I said, ‘Not with breakfast, mother! We’ll have bubbles later’ – and we did. To top it all, Mum won the prize of some luggage at the end of the day. Her face was a picture when her name was called. We never win anything in our family!”
Dot has certainly ‘won’ when it comes to her caring son. It’s two years this summer since she lost her husband of almost 60 years.
“Dad passed away in his sleep, bless him,” Richard explains. “It had always been the three of us; just me, Mum and Dad. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. She lived in Hampshire but about 15 months ago, I moved her up to London to be near me.
“It wasn’t always easy at first as she adapted to her new lifestyle but now she’s woven very much into my life. She’s spread her wings a bit and there’s always something for her to do here. She and Dad used to come up and visit me. She already knew my tribe of friends so it wasn’t such a massive culture shock. She’s made friends where she lives – and we’re in neighbouring areas in central London. She’s got her emergency numbers in her handbag and her key around her neck!”
They are very much ‘like mother like son’. Richard explains, “She loves a chat – that’s probably where I get it from – and she’ll get someone’s back story in about ten minutes. She’s a better journalist than me and is as sharp as the proverbial tack – she’s a devil for the detail!”
Because he has a lot of early starts on Good Morning Britain, Richard says he gets to see his mum at least four times a week. “I’ll take her for breakfast after Good Morning Britain. We’ll have lunch together, go to the theatre, out for dinner, we do a Sunday roast together and have a couple glasses of wine. . . It’s a fantastic new lease of life for her – and for me, too. We were three but we’re now two.”
In addition to taking his mum to Paris, Richard also took Dot to Australia for Christmas. “That was wonderful, too,” he smiles. “Mum hasn’t travelled widely in her life. She and Dad squeezed in a couple of trips to Switzerland and Jersey before I was born. And I took them to New York to celebrate their Golden Wedding 11 years ago. She wasn’t really bitten by the travel bug before but she’s really embracing it now!”
What does Dot herself feel about her new life in London?
“I feel like a little girl who’s been let out of school,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m having the time of my life towards the end of my life.”
It’s clear Richard (48) is as proud of his mum as she is of him.
“It is quite extraordinary when I think about where we are now compared to the initial aftermath when she lost Dad,” he says. “Seeing how far we have come really is testament to the clichés people say when sad things happen – blue skies will come again. Neither Mum nor I are getting any younger and I want us to make the most of it while we are still able.” Richard Arnold, oh that every mother had a son like you!
■ Murder On The Orient Express is out now on DVD and BluRay
‘Seeing how far we have come really is testament to the clichés people say when sad things happen – blue skies will come again’