Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Why we all need a daily dose of vitamin N... nature!
The great outdoors is the ultimate panacea, says Julia Bradbury – and her new TV series will inspire you to get out and enjoy it. By Rebecca Hardy
wet November day rolling down hills and having a wet leaf fight.
‘A few weeks ago we went for a family cycle ride to our local park and suddenly the heavens just opened. We weren’t prepared. We didn’t have our waterproofs on and the rain became hail. It was freezing cold. We took shelter under a massive tree and it passed in about ten minutes. As we were cycling away, one of my little girls was crying because her hands were blue. I said, “Keep moving. It will warm you up.”
‘Then we stopped, looked up and there was a double rainbow in the sky above us. The kids were awestruck. So that’s their favourite day this year. I urge everyone to get their dose of vitamin N every single day.’
To see Julia’s huge grin when she speaks about her children is wonderful. We’ve known one another for years. She had all but given up hope of having children when she conceived her ‘miracle baby’. She was 40, but far too busy careering to think about rearing, having gone from reporting for GMTV in Los Angeles in the 90s to the BBC’S Watchdog and Countryfile, more than 50 Wainwright Walks and notoriety as the rambling man’s hot-buttered crumpet. When she paused to take a breath she feared she was too late to be a mum.
She wasn’t, as she says, ‘in a relationship’ with her children’s father, 61-year-old Irish property developer
Gerard Cunningham (although they had known one another for 20 years) when she became pregnant. They moved in together seven months later. ‘After I had Zeph I was surprised by the longing for him to have siblings,’ she says. ‘The motivation to have more children wasn’t because I was baby hungry but because of that. To be here now, a mother of three, is for me a very happy place to be.’
Will she marry Gerard? ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s not something we think about or talk about. We’re parents. We’re a happy family although what I have noticed is my little boy has suffered during lockdown too. We’re fortunate in that we have a garden and space and the facilities to enable our children to do online learning, but he’s suffered because of the lack of interaction with boys his own age.
‘He’s been playing with his sisters and they dress up and stuff which is good for his imagination, but he hasn’t matured during lockdown. I think it’s had a negative impact on his relationships at school and I can’t do anything about that because I can’t send him on playdates.’
Julia flashes her dazzling smile, but you know for all her jolliness she worries too. The first lockdown was, she says, ‘the first time in my children’s lives that I’ve ever spent that length of time with all of them without having to go away for work. When I left to film this new series in between lockdowns, it was all right for the first two-week stint, but the second time they didn’t want me to go. There were lots of tears and clinging. Lockdown affects us all. ‘I’ve got fantastic friends I’ve had since my 20s who I regard as family. One of my friends had a massive tumour in his throat. He had an operation where there was a 40 per cent chance he wouldn’t get off the table. He did. I’m desperate to see him but I can’t.’
She shakes herself. ‘I’m not feeling sorry for us as a family, but this year was a milestone birthday for me. We were going to take my children to see their great-grandmother who is 103, now I don’t know if they’ll ever meet.’
She looks sad now. ‘The thing we can all do, that’s in our control, is access green spaces and nature. We can all grow an indoor plant. We can all have a window box. We can all go to our local park. We can all get our dose of vitamin N every day, and there will be a time when children can sit in their grandparents’ laps again, curl their little legs around their calves and be as close to them as little beings can – there will.’ ■
‘We can all access green spaces, and grow an indoor plant’