Blue Peter Janet, 68: I can imagine a new romance
JANET Ellis has not ruled out finding love again following the death of her husband from cancer four years ago.
The former Blue Peter presenter, 68, was married to TV producer John Leach for 32 years. And while she has struggled with grief, she can now envisage a day when she might meet someone new.
“It surprises me and there is absolutely no one I think this applies to, but I can sort of imagine sometimes being with someone else,” Janet said.
“I don’t know how I get there, I can’t imagine the process and when I even begin to think about it, I realise that all my thoughts are approximately 35 years out of date, so that would be awks for a start.”
The star, who presented the BBC children’s TV show for four years in the 1980s, admitted that she was so heartbroken after John’s death she found it hard seeing older people in love.
“For a long time after he died, I could not stand seeing happy old couples together,” she
told broadcaster Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast. “Because I always thought he would make such a lovely old man I hated seeing that, I felt very deprived.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to living on my own, because I really liked sharing. It’s a constant thumping presence of his absence.”
Janet has tried going on holiday alone but hated it, saying: “I went to Sicily on my own and spent a week trying to recreate being in a couple on my own, which was nonsense, painful and stupid.
“I thought I’d see how it feels and now I know – it was horrible.
‘It was so horrible on holiday alone’
I’m not doing that again. And it still catches me by surprise that I get into half the bed and that I sit opposite a space to eat alone.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that actually.”
For the past year Janet has shared her west London home with 19-year-old grandson Sonny – son of her singer daughter Sophie Ellis-bextor, 44, from Janet’s first marriage to Robin Bextor. They separated during her time on Blue Peter and she married John in 1988. They had two children together – Jackson and Martha.
Speaking of her relationship with her eldest grandson, she said: “We keep very different timetables but it’s lovely having someone in the house that I love.
“He’s never been Mr Grumpy Teen.”