Sarah Beeny’s Life Lessons
TV presenter Sarah Beeny (48), on TV with a new series on starting again in the country, talks family, compromise and not worrying about ageing
■ Don’t worry about ageing
I am happy to have left behind all the angst and insecurity of younger days! I look at my wrinkles now, but I don’t mind them. I’d never get rid of them with cosmetic surgery, it’s like a book of my life on my face. You can read my life through them. I lost my mum to breast cancer when she was 39 and I was ten. I think that was always on my mind, and I was worried about cancer but I feel calmer about it now in my late 40s. I did go a bit a grey in the first lockdown too!
■ Starting afresh is good
A new challenge is stimulating and keeps the brain moving; everything moving! When my husband and business partner Graham Swift suggested moving to Somerset from London two years ago with our four sons, it took me a while to come around to it. He desperately wanted to build our own home in the country. I resisted for a long time and overall it wasn’t easy making such a massive change, as everyone will see in our new series, New Life In The Country, but I am glad I’ve done it now.
■ Life is about compromise
Graham and I have been together since I was 19 and he was 18. Compromise is probably easier if you’ve been together since you are young because you’ve
■ ended up with a joint way of doing things. You have to compromise, though. I was telling one of my sons the other day that learning when to stand your ground, and when it doesn’t matter, is a really important lesson. You have to work it out. You win some, you lose some.
■ My lessons from Covid Life is about people and not about things. This year has brought me closer to my family and to value them more. I was always really close to my older brother Dickon and spoke to him all the time when I lived in London and he was in Somerset, but now he lives nearby. In the past, I would barely stop, but before the latest lockdown I’d go for a coffee and sit under a tree with him.
I have really started to appreciate people when I see them. Maybe it’s my age, but I do feel that we should all try to live for ‘today’.
■ Seize opportunities
I left school at 17 and had my own sandwich business, sold vacuum cleaners and did a lambing season in New Zealand. I was only 20 when I set up my property development company with Graham and my brother. In 2001 I went to a hen party and randomly, a researcher for a new series about property development happened to be there too. The party hostess phoned me the next day and said: “Oh you met my sister-inlaw and she’s asking, do you want to come for a screen test to be a presenter?” That new series was Property Ladder – and the rest is history.