Gloria Hunniford reveals ‘saviour’ after daughter and husband’s deaths ‘crushed’ her

Gloria Hunniford has interviewed senior royalty and some of the most celebrated names in history but it is her genius at relating to ordinary people which has secured her status as a national treasure.

The acclaimed broadcaster has no interest in retiring. Work is not just a passion; it is now a “saviour” and a solace.

Her cherished husband, Stephen Way, died in August. “In my head, work is my safe place,” she explains, saying it fills her head with “something else other than grief and sadness”.

Gloria has helped Britons talk about loss. Her beloved daughter, former Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating, died in 2004, seven years after being diagnosed with cancer.

“Losing a child was just so crushing I can’t even describe it,” she says. “And then to lose my husband… We were together 30 years and married for 25 of those fabulous years.”

She has written books celebrating her daughter’s courage and describing how the family coped with her passing, and she talks about Stephen and Caron with gratitude, joy and pride.

“I think of them all the time for 100,000 reasons,” she says.

Gloria, who has presented Songs of Praise, looks forward to one day being in their company once more.

She says: “I believe that I will see Caron and Stevie again… I want to believe this isn’t the end. And the older you get, the more I feel like that. I enjoy life and I don’t want it to end.”

The resilience of her faith, nurtured during her days growing up in Portadown in Northern Ireland, came as a surprise to some.

She remembers: “A lot of people got in touch after Caron died and said, ‘Has that really shaken and ruined your faith?’ I went, ‘No, it hasn’t. Because I actually need my faith even more.’”

Stephen and her shared an impulsive personality If she suggested a snap weekend in Dublin, he would respond: “Right, let’s go!”

“I always thought Stevie and I would grow old together,” she says. “Like, really old, into our nineties.”

Gloria has simple advice for others who are dealing with bereavement.

“Anything that takes your mind away from your grief for half an hour, half a day is helpful.”

She is looking forward to returning to where she spent her childhood for a documentary and is excited at the re-release of her album A Taste of Hunni.

Though famed for her years as a Radio 2 host and as the presenter of programmes including Holiday, Rip-Off Britain and Pebble Mill, it was as a singer that Gloria first strode into the spotlight.

Her father ran a newspaper advertising department by day but at night performed as a magician. From the age of seven, Gloria joined him as a singer and they were sometimes out five nights a week.

“It was a great experience,” she says. “It taught me how to stand up on a stage and talk to an audience, and I got seven and sixpence a night, which to a child then in the late 1940s was a fortune.”

They toured church halls, schools and sometimes concert venues.

“All the local people would turn up because that was the entertainment,” she explains. “There was no telly.”

A interview about an early album led to a job offer – just as the Troubles were unfolding in Northern Ireland.

She remembers her new boss taking her to the newsroom.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I see a lot of men just pounding on their typewriters.”

“Remember,” he told her. “As a woman you’re not coming in here to do recipes and knitting and sewing and things.

“Remember, you’re as good as any bloke in this room and you’ll be on the streets of Northern Ireland doing bombs, bullets and barricades just like them.”

She says she never saw herself as a trailblazer.

“I wasn’t thinking of being any kind of pioneer at all. I just wanted the career.”

She excelled and became the first woman to have her own show on Radio 2.

In her younger years she was a self-described “movie fanatic” and as a broadcaster she loved interviewing the “wonderful” Audrey Hepburn and Charlton Heston. Meeting Doris Day was particularly meaningful.

“I wanted to be Doris Day when I was growing up because of the singing, because of the clothes and, eventually, when I was old enough, because of the men,” she confesses.

In 2021 she interviewed Camilla, the then-Duchess of Cornwall to mark World Osteoporosis Day. The future Queen described her mother’s painful struggles with the bone disease; on one occasion a hug from a friend caused a bone to break.

Gloria is now an ambassador for the Royal Osteoporosis Society and fully supports the charity’s Better Bones campaign with the Sunday Express so routine checks for the condition will be available in all parts of the nation.

She is passionate about bone health, particularly after a nasty tennis accident which seriously injured a shoulder.

“I went head over heels in the net and I could hear the bones cracking,” she remembers.

Gloria encourages people to do load-bearing exercises and she takes calcium “religiously” to strengthen her bones.

She delights in her family – and treasures memories of witnessing Caron’s sons being born – and is the author of Glorious Grandparenting: Having the Time of Your Life.

“Nobody really understands how much you’re going to enjoy grandchildren until you have them,” she says.

But showbusiness has lost none of its sparkle for this seasoned performer.

In 2022 she relished appearing on The Masked Singer, disguised as the “snow leopard” and singing Shirley Bassey’s Big Spender.

And when asked if she would like to sing before an audience again, she says: “Well, now that my record is being re-released I might have to. Mightn’t I?”

If she does take to the stage once again she can be assured of the roar of the crowd.