Fern Britton has said she made a shocking discovery about her family in her mid-50s (Image: Getty)
TV presenter has spoken about an ‘uneasy’ family secret she only discovered when she was in her 50s.
Detailing said secret in her book ‘The Older I Get How I Repowered My Life’ the 67-year-old presenter detailed how she discovered why she had no memories of her father living with her mother or sister, the actor Tony Britton, growing up.
The reason, as it later transpired, was because by the time was born in 1957, her father had already left Ferne’s mother to be with Eva Castle, the woman who would go onto be his second wife.
Ferne wrote: “It transpired that during one visit of a few hours back to see her, he and my mum had temporarily rekindled their feelings and I was conceived. Did he go back to his new partner with a – possibly – guilty spring in his step? How did he manage to explain my eventual appearance to his future wife?”
Whilst the revelation was a shock to , she said it “fitted a huge piece of the jigsaw” in her life and that it had been clear when her father had told her that he “needed to get it off his chest”.
Fern Britton has recently released an autobiography talking about her life to date (Image: Getty)
Despite now having the knowledge gap in her life filled, Fern explained that her father’s admission left more questions than it provided answers.
“At the age of 55 I was left with a strong feeling of ‘why did nobody say?’ Everyone knew. My uncle, aunt, sister. They all knew. It was only me that was kept in the dark.”, wrote the former star of This Morning.
Fern wrote that as a result of finding out how much had been kept from her she now hates it “when someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on”.
She added: “It upsets me and makes me very uneasy. I treasure people’s honesty and frankness. I like to know where I am.”
As well as opening up about her relationship with her father, who died in 2019, has also been discussing her relationship with her ex . The pair were married in 2000 before divorcing 20 years later.
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Since the divorce Fern has said that she thought “this was not how it’s meant to be” after their marriage broke down. Writing in her autobiography she said:“Here I was, single, looking at a very different future to the one I had imagined. This was not how it was meant to be.
“I had always thought that my husband and I would make it our permanent home. A place to share, together, once the children had left school. Now a new chapter was starting and for the first time in my life I couldn’t be sure of what my future held.”
Fern also says in her book how the families’ holiday home in Cornwall gave her an immense sense of comfort after the break-up: “There were so many happy memories around every corner.
“The children dashing in with sandy feet, surfboards piled up outside the front door. The empty packets of crisps and tins of Coke strewn around bedrooms, kitchen and lounge. Happy bronzed and freckled faces of children who were bickering but carefree.”