The one lesson I’ve learned from life

Carol Vorderman, 55, has been a regular on British TV since she started co-hosting Countdown in the early eighties. The maths expert is a mum to Katie, 24, and Cameron, 19. divorced, she lives in Bristol.

It’s never too late to do what you love

GrowinG up in wales, one of my favourite things to do was to look up at the sky and search for planes, full of delight and wonder when i spotted one. ‘i’d love to be a pilot when i grow up,’ i thought.

Male-dominated professions weren’t encouraged at school and when i said i wanted to read engineering at Cambridge University, i was laughed at.

But i hoped it would help me obtain a pilot’s licence. no one hired female pilots in the Seventies.

i was accepted the following year, aged 17, and was one of the first women on the course. But after graduation, i got married and, after my mother spotted a job ad looking for someone with good maths skills to co-host a quiz show, i joined Countdown in 1982.

My dream of being a pilot had to be swept under the rug.

After my second marriage ended in 2000, i was a single parent and my elderly mother was living with us. other people’s needs came first. it wasn’t until i left Countdown in 2008, with my 50th birthday on the horizon, that i started to dream of flying again, but there was always a reason why it wasn’t the right time. i was also convinced i was too old.

i was just about to start presenting the TV show Loose women when my dear mum was diagnosed with cancer.

it wasn’t until 2011 when i met a woman in her late 60s who told me she hadn’t learned to fly until she was 50 that my perspective shifted. inspired, i booked a six-week course at a flight school in San Diego. Every time i landed, it was with a huge smile spread across my face.

when i returned, i bought myself a little plane and continued lessons. i completed my first solo flight three years ago, live on iTV’s This Morning, and got my pilot’s licence before Christmas 2014.

now, i’m just one exam away from being a commercial pilot. next April, i plan to fly solo around the world. only eight women in history have done it.

if i could go back in time, i’d tell that little girl staring up at the planes that it doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man, it doesn’t matter what people say, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 55.

Following your dreams is one of life’s greatest joys and we shouldn’t let anything stand in our way.