The one lesson I’ve learned from life
Fern Britton, 58, is familiar to TV audiences from presenting ready Steady Cook and This Morning, as well as taking part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2012. She now hosts BBC1’s antiques quiz, For What it’s Worth. Fern lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband, TV chef Phil Vickery, and her four children.
Even the bleakest times pass eventually
From as far back as I can remember, my mother, ruth, has had a piece of wisdom that has become a kind of mantra for me. I remember arriving home one day from primary school where I’d had a punch-up with my best friend. I was terribly upset, but she held me tight. ‘Feef,’ she said — she never calls me Fern — ‘it will pass.’ At 21, I was working as a full-time assistant stage manager in Cambridge, involved in many different productions, when I got my first big bout of depression. I didn’t know what was causing it, only that it was increasingly hard to get up in the morning. I kept having to rush to the loo at work so no one could see me crying. Living on my own, I was left with my own thoughts a lot of the time, and life felt more and more insufferable. Desperate and terrified of my suicidal thoughts, I went to the doctor who signed me off work for a month. So I went back to mum, who put me to bed where I stayed, quite literally, for four weeks. She’d sit with me through the day and, over and over, she’d say: ‘It will pass.’ I still didn’t really understand what she meant or, at least, I didn’t entirely believe her. In my 30s, I got my heart broken a couple of times but, by then, I’d matured a bit and began thinking, yes, I could get through this, that nothing stays bad for ever. I’d survive the next hour, day, week and of course it was going to hurt but it was going to get better. When I went through post-natal depression after my twin sons, Harry and Jack, were born and then the upset of divorce from my first husband, I knew that, as awful as things seemed at the time, they would pass. Now I say to my children when life seems to be ganging up on them: ‘It will pass. I promise you. I know.’ Whether they fully believe me yet, I’m not sure. But, as they mature, they’ll come to know that their grandmother has handed down an invaluable piece of wisdom. The Postcard by Fern Britton is published by Harpercollins, £12.99.