EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS
ANNE ROBINSON
THE NEW HOST OF ‘COUNTDOWN’ SPEAKS FRANKLY ABOUT FAMILY LIFE AND BEING A FEMALE FRONTRUNNER
JOINED BY DAUGHTER EMMA AT HOME IN THE COTSWOLDS
Defying stereotypes of age and gender, Anne, 76, is taking over from Nick Hewer as host of TV’s Countdown.
“Suddenly she has a skip in her step,” says Emma, pictured (right) with her mother and their dogs in Anne’s Cotswolds garden
(MAIN PHOTO) ANNE’S TOP: MARNI. SKIRT: COMME DES GARCONS AT DOVER STREET MARKET. SANDALS: PRADA. EMMA’S DRESS: SAMANTHA SUNG AT FENWICK. (RIGHT) ANNE’S DRESS: DANIELA GREGIS AT DOVER STREET MARKET. NECKLACE: MARNI
One person who will be celebrating the return of Anne Robinson to our TV screens this week is her daughter, Emma Wilson.
“It’s a lifesaver,” she says of her mother’s new job as the host of Countdown, the long-running Channel 4 daytime programme. “She was driving us all crazy because she was bored – she’s terrible when she’s idle. But suddenly she has a skip in her step, and we’ve got Anne Robinson back.”
We are talking in the large, lightfilled living room of Anne’s beautifully converted Cotswolds barn where Emma, 50, husband Liam Kan and sons Hudson, 12, and Parker, 11, along with their two English setters, spent most of lockdown.
“They arrived just in time from London, and I couldn’t believe what came out of the car – two dogs, cricket bats, footballs, badminton and tennis rackets, plants. I didn’t think it was ever going to stop,” says Anne, sitting on one of the elegant sofas, which, along with her many books and eclectic artwork, makes the space so welcoming and comfortable. A ping-pong table, put up for her grandsons, still stands as a reminder of when her home was overtaken with family paraphernalia.
“We had times of annoying each other, times of high drama, but over all it was fabulous,” she adds.
The TV presenter and journalist, famed as the Queen of Mean on the BBC1 quiz show Weakest Link, is not,
she admits, “trained in leisure”, so an invitation to present Countdown, after months at home, came just at the right time. As the show’s sixth host in its 39-year history, Anne, 76, will be “the oldest lady on TV who doesn’t judge a cookery programme”, as she’s fond of saying.