Fern: I got on my bike – to banish the blues at last

Fern Britton reveals how exercise ended her lifelong battle with depression – and helped her deal with the ‘fat band con’ slurs

As the host of ITV magazine show This Morning for more than a decade, she was the undisputed queen of British daytime television. Her millions of daily viewers, in particular women, loved Fern Britton because she was ‘just like us’.

When she broke down with laughter on air, we laughed with her. She had wobbly bits, and wasn’t ashamed of them.

So it is perhaps not surprising that there was a sense of betrayal after Fern revealed that her dramatic weight loss – she slimmed from a size 22, losing a reported six stone – was, in fact, thanks to a gastric-band operation and not just the Weight Watchers meetings she’d been pictured attending.

When I meet her, the seemingly irrepressible author and presenter is basking in a glow of satisfaction, just back from a 372-mile bike ride in the Scottish Highlands.

Fern turned to cycling to help her through crippling bouts of depression, which she has suffered since her 20s – and it also helped her face that very public backlash.

In the past ten years she has clocked up hundreds of miles and 14 charity races, and getting on her bike has become an integral part of her physical and mental wellbeing. But the hurt of headlines like ‘Fern’s fat band con’ seems still fresh.

She recalls: ‘Ten years ago I was desperate to lose weight. I signed up for Weight Watchers under my married name, but within 48 hours of joining the local group I’d had a call from their press office telling me it had gone public and I was furious. I wanted to lose weight privately. So I went to my GP and she asked if I’d thought about having gastric surgery.’

At the time, Fern was also espousing healthy eating and appearing in adverts for Ryvita, but denies she hoodwinked her fans. She says: ‘I hadn’t lied. As soon as someone asked if I’d had a gastric band, I said yes, I had. I’m not ashamed and have no regrets. I’m grateful that it worked for me and helped save me from serious illness. I get letters from people who’ve had the procedure and daren’t tell their friends because they’re scared they’ll get the same backlash I got.’

Today, she isn’t as dramatically slim as she was. But she says: ‘I have the body I’m supposed to have.’ At 58, she looks fabulously healthy.

Fern works out three times a week, and a check-up last month revealed her BMI and cholesterol were well within the healthy range. More significantly, Fern hasn’t had to take antidepressants for several years.

She was diagnosed with depressionat18,thenhadseverepost-natal depression and continued to suffer from the condition after divorce from TV executive Clive Jones in 1998. She credits current husband, chef Phil Vickery, whom she married in 2001, with lifting her ‘out of my black fog’ after they met on the set of the BBC’s Ready, Steady, Cook in 1999.

Fern continued to struggle with depression until she spotted an advert in 2004 for a bike ride along the banks of the Nile to raise money for Genesis Research Trust, which funds research into the causes of miscarriage and premature birth.

Looking back to that first ride, she admits: ‘I was overweight, unfit and exhausted, so the ride was tough but I remember thinking, “I’m getting fit, feeling better, we’re doing something good for a great charity and I’m making wonderful friends.” I was elated to finish the ride alive and haven’t stopped cycling since.’ Now the hobby has become a family affair. ‘Two summers ago, my daughter Winnie and I cycled from Reading to Cornwall with friends, stopping off at pubs and B&Bs, which was a lovely experience,’ she says. ‘With an average age of 48, we call ourselves the Genesis Girls.’

She recently filmed a new quiz show and her sixth novel, The Postcard, was released last month.

In July next year she will be 60. ‘I’m a bit rough round the edges, with wrinkles and bosoms down to my knees. But that’s how 60 should look. I’m hoping that at 70, I will still be active’.

And while being married to a chef means she will always be able to eat nutritious meals, she confesses: ‘That’s not to say we don’t have wine and chocolate in the house – we do.’