Springwatch star says being apart keeps r elationship fresh Our Kate marriage
WILDLIFE presenter Kate Humble has discovered that absence not only makes the heart grow fonder. It is also the recipe for a long and happy marriage. The ex Springwatch and Lambing Live host, 48, wed TV producer Ludo Graham, 55, in 1992. Yet she reckons work has kept them apart so long that they have only been “physically married” for four-and-a-half of the 25 years. Kate, recentl recently back from filming a documentary in India, said: “You hear about thesethe wonderful old couples who h have been together for 50 years a and never spent a night apart, b but I think we’d kill each other. “We’re both very independent, I’ve always b been that way. We have odd jo jobs. It helps to be with someb somebody like-minded. “But jus just because we’re still together after 25 years, it doesn’t mean that everything’s perfect all the time.”
Kate does not talk to Ludo for weeks at a time when she is writing. She has penned two books, Humble by Nature and Friend For Life, about the partnership between humans and dogs.
She said: “Ludo’s been tremendously supportive of my writing, which is hugely important, but it makes me very anti- social and grumpy. I take myself off for two weeks at a time and turn my phone off and say to him: ‘No contact, I’ve just got to write.’
Smelly
“That’s a very selfish and selfindulgent. I hope I’m supportive of the things that he wants to do, too. We both understand we have projects that keep us apart but, equally, we can sit happily giggling on the sofa over the Sunday papers.”
The nature-loving couple live on a 117-acre farm in the Wye Valley in Monmouthshire with their dogs Badger, Bella and Teg, star of Kate’s 2016 documentary My Sheepdog And Me. Kate has always been open about not wanting children and insists her pooches are not a substitute.
She said: “The canine gene is a much better gene to have than the maternal one.”
But she admitted Badger can overstep the mark when they have guests. She said: “He knows if he barks in the kitchen he’s allowed to sleep in our bed.
“We wake up in the morning with his head between us on the pillows and he’s wriggled under the duvet. He’s quite smelly. We’ll not be getting more dogs for a while.”
Kate found her niche on wildlife programmes but kicked started her career hosting Top Gear in 1999. She said: “I was seriously one of the worst presenters that Top Gear has ever had.
“I’d only ever driven three cars, including a Fiat Uno. On my first day I bunny hopped an Aston Martin as I left the handbrake on. It was so embarrassing.”