Vernon: Our kids will Strictly earn their cash
TELLY golden couple Vernon Kay and Tess Daly say they won’t be handing their Family Fortunes to the kids – who will have to graft just like they did.
Vernon, 46, started work at 14 and makes his daughters wince at tales of his time as a caretaker cleaning school loos.
His girls Phoebe and Amber are 15 and 11. But Vernon, worth a reported £5million with Strictly Come Dancing host Tess, 51, says: “I’m not giving my kids a future.
“I’m not giving them anything. I’m not saying, ‘here’s a trust fund go and do whatever you want’.
“No way – they will have to graft to make a living. The world is not going to give you anything.”
Bolton-raised Vernon rnon says his parents’ work ork ethic always drove him.
Dad Norman was sa a truck driver and mum um Gladys worked in a mill.
Vernon told Radio o5 5 Live: “My kids will have to work for it. That’s the way I was brought up and my parents and their parents too.
“It worries me some young people think they can sit at a keyboard, pout their lips and be an influencer – but that’s not real life.” Vernon started out packing bananas and worked in a DIY shop and cleaned phone boxes before becoming a male model in his 20s. His TV break came on Channel 4’s T4 in 1998. He went on to present 12 series of All Star Family Fortunes on ITV and has fronted weekend shows on Radio 1.
He is now a Formula E motor racing presenter and columni columnist. Of his school caret caretaking job, he reca recalls: “The head wou would arrive at
7.3 7.30am and say t there had been an incident in the toilets, could I attend to it. My kids ask, ‘So you ha had to clean it up?’ an and I say, ‘Yes’!”