I know I’m 60, but in my head I feel like I’m 20...
TV presenter Carol Vorderman tells SIOBHAN MCNALLY about taking time to concentrate on her health and why she’s happy being single
SIXTY is the new 20, according to the nation’s favourite maths whiz, who says she’s in the prime of her life and wants more play and less work.
“I know I’m 60 – I know that because my birth certificate says so,” says a lively and vivacious Carol Vorderman as she chats from her elegant Bristol home.
“But I’ve got the greatest sense of freedom that I’ve ever had. In my head I feel like I’m 20!”
The freedom of her 60s has made Carol excited at what the future holds. The twice-married TV presenter says: “I was a good daughter to my mum until she died in 2017, and I’ve looked after my kids, Katie, 29, and 24-year-old Cameron, as a single parent, and they’re happy. So it’s like... what shall I do now?”
And Carol can’t believe she’s been hosting The Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards, in partnership with TSB, for an incredible 22 years, with nominations for this year’s awards now open.
She adds: “And next year it will be 40 years since Countdown [the Channel 4 game show on which she found fame] started. But I’m not that bothered about being on the telly any more. I worked my butt off last year and I don’t want to do it any more.”
Lockdown took its toll and left Carol exhausted.
She says: “I was really busy, I was making a couple of new TV shows and books, plus filming new stuff for The Maths Factor [a website Carol set up in 2010 to help every child unlock their confidence with numbers]. i found lockdown difficult – like everybody. By last Christmas I was bloated and not well. Tired beyond tired, and I was finding filming not pleasant.
“In January I said to my agent, ‘I’m just not doing that any more. I don’t see the point. I’m going to concentrate on my health’, so that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Carol revealed in a recent Good Morning Britain interview, that she battled coronavirus last year and contracted long Covid, but has since fully recovered.
Her work with Pride of Britain has made Carol determined to spend more of her time helping others. She has been working with Swansea and Cambridge universities for years, secretly giving away educational bursaries to help children from deprived backgrounds.
Carol says: “And now I want to do even more. My old school in Rhyl is still 50% free school meals, so I’m going to be doing a lot with them. And also I plan to set up a foundation in the future.
“I’ve lived a very interesting life, a life I couldn’t have dreamt of as a kid as I was from a really poor family. And I want to give something back.”
You also get the feeling she’s not looking for “the one” since her relationship with Red Arrows pilot Graham Duff ended five years ago.
She says: “I am genuinely happy being single with ‘special’ friends.”
The real love in her life now is Wales – where her mum Jean came from and she spent the first 20 years growing up in Prestatyn, North Wales. Carol even bought a clifftop house in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, 18 months ago.
“I love it there – it’s wild and Welsh,“she says happily, adding, “I intend spending a lot more time there now.”
She’s been learning Welsh and loves her Saturday job on BBC
Radio Wales.
The qualified pilot is taking care of herself too, and after her jabs in February she has changed how she exercises.
The results are clear in the gym shots she regularly posts to her half a million social media followers.
“I’m very healthy and fit. I do 16/8 intermittent fasting and I’m in the gym doing weights three times a week,” she says. “I’ve told my trainer I’ve got three things I want to do by the end of the year – a full press-up, a handstand and the splits!”
In 2017, Carol made headlines when she spoke on the Lorraine show about her severe menopausal depression and when finally prescribed HRT, the result was “miraculous”.
She says: “I’m not still on HRT gel – I came off it two years ago. And then very occasionally I think, ‘Ooh I’ll have another squirt of that gel and see what happens.’ But I don’t feel I need it.”
Now past the menopause, the TV host is in rude health.
“I’m not on any medication, which is rare for someone my age,” she reveals. “But I do take a lot of vitamin and mineral supplements.”
Known as Boots Vorderman for her thigh-length black leather footwear when studying engineering at Cambridge, Carol is now learning about gerontology – the study of ageing.
“I love my life so much, I want to carry on like this for as long as I can,” she says.
“My thing is biohacking. I’m experimenting with all sorts of things and hoping to do a documentary about it, but I’m at the next stage of life. I want to push the boundaries of ageing healthily.”
As nominations for this year’s Pride of Britain open, Carol counts herself very lucky to be able to celebrate another year of everyday heroes doing extraordinary things.
She smiles: “I genuinely wake up every day and think, ‘B ***** hell, you’re a lucky woman, Vorderman’.”
■ Nominations for Pride of Britain are open now. Go to prideofbritain. com/nominate