She saw off Fiona Phillips, and then GMTV brought in a younger, glossier model. But Kate Garraway insists all is well... she just won't be taking much maternity leave when she has her baby.
Kate Garraway
There was no pecking order at GMTV: Kate Garraway discusses her relationship with co-resenter Fiona Phillips
How to ask this one delicately? Was Kate Garraway – always the GMTV bridesmaid to Fiona Phillips's bride - miffed to be denied her moment in the televisual equivalent of the big white dress?
It was widely assumed that when Phillips, always regarded as the Queen Bee of the breakfast sofa, stepped down from her job last December, it would be Kate's moment to step up.
Alas for her fans, it wasn't quite that simple. In the ensuing shake-up, Kate did indeed get Fiona's job, but a new girl, Emma Crosby, was also welcomed into the GMTV fold, and it was made clear that the two would be very much on equal footing.
We will get on to the perennially thorny question of Kate's relationship with Phillips in a moment, but first, was she alarmed to discover that she would be effectively sharing the top job – and with someone ten years younger and, dare we say it, glossier to boot?
'Not until you mentioned it, no, although I shall get on to my therapist straight away,' she says with mock outrage. In fact, she seems more resigned than outraged. 'I kind of assumed that they wouldn't take on anyone older than me,' she says dryly 'And, yes, Emma is very pretty.'
But one has to assume she at least wanted – if not expected – the top job? She gives a sigh. 'It's hard to answer that question without sounding like I'm being rude about Fiona, because obviously Fiona is a massive icon.
'I mean, I think she'd been on the sofa for 16 years or something, and yes, obviously I would like to have that sort of respect in the business, but the truth is that we were doing the same job anyway – just at different hours of the week.
'And I honestly don't believe that within GMTV there was the same idea of a pecking order. It wasn't as if people there would say that Mondays are more important than Thursdays, you know. I don't think that when Fiona went anyone on the programme thought, "Her job is up for grabs".
Kate makes the point that in recent years, all breakfast shows, not just GMTV, have increasingly relied on a team of presenters, spread over the week, rather than just one or two faces.
'That was the case before, and now it's just been replicated with me and Emma. I do the start of the week. She does the end. There is no great tussle there.'
In truth, Kate seems to be genuinely astonished that there was such a hoo-ha over the whole issue. 'It says a lot about how people regard GMTV, to be honest. I know there are people who hate it, but so many really love it.
It inspires strong reactions. I mean, there would never have been this fuss over the presenters of BBC Breakfast. Who even knows who presents on what day there?
She has a point. We dither over who the current presenters of the BBC show are. 'See!' she declares. 'Point made.' Then she puts her hand over her mouth. 'Oops. I'm never going to get a job on BBC Breakfast now.'
What's certainly true is that GMTV has – rightly or wrongly – acquired a reputation for being something of a bitchfest. The show that served us up Ulrika Jonsson and Anthea 'Princess Tippy Toes' Turner has always seemed a mass of rivalries. And in recent years, the biggest spat, apparently, has been between Kate and Phillips.
'I know,' says Kate, rolling her eyes. 'People think we hate and want to kill each other.' And would they be right? 'No. The truth is we just never had that much contact because, when she was working, I would be off, and vice versa.
We do have a lot in common. We did the same job, for goodness sake, and when I was having my daughter, Darcey, she was very supportive. We didn't socialise, but yes, I would call her a friend. I saw her recently, and she looked amazing, she's obviously had a few good night's sleep.'
At the time she announced she was leaving, Phillips spoke movingly about the difficulties of marrying the job with her family commitments, particularly caring for her ailing parents – her mother died two years ago after suffering from Alzheimer's for seven years and now her father has been diagnosed with the same disease.
Did Kate have any inkling of the pressures her colleague was under?
'Only to a point. When Fiona's mum died, I think a lot of people in the company had no idea how much she'd had to deal with. She's very good at keeping that side out of work. Maybe when something is that personal and emotional you sometimes want to leave it and go to work, don't you?'
Unlike Phillips, who is only known as a GMTV presenter, Kate has been canny enough to position herself as a general TV presenter, in a way that Phillips never really did, and seems keen to show that she can do other things.
Last year there was a highly controversial TV documentary about breastfeeding – the startling publicity shots were designed to make it look as though she were actually feeding a calf herself.
Now, she is about to front a diet programme that could raise as many eyebrows. Britain's Biggest Loser is contentious, some might say distasteful, stuff – a show where obese people compete to see who can lose the most weight.
Isn't this a bit, well, beyond the pale?
'When I heard about the competition element, I was a bit worried,' she concedes. 'I did ask myself, "Is this right?", but it does provide these people with real motivation and you can see that. And they aren't just people who need to lose a few pounds – these are people who weigh 25st. The programme is all about getting them to confront the issues that have allowed them to get this size.'
One does wonder what Kate – a size 10 – knows about the problems of being overweight. She freely admits that she has never truly struggled, 'although I did pile on the pounds when I went to university and didn't have my mum cooking sensible food for me'.
If anything, her struggles have been about being too thin. After Darcey was born three years ago, she lost a lot of weight, prompting fears that she had developed an eating disorder. She was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid, and the condition was corrected, but she says it was a scary time.
'I got way too thin,' she says. 'It might have been a good thing from the hips point of view, but not for my face. What that period did do, though, was make me think much more about my body and how I was treating it. Before, I'd been as guilty as anyone about thinking on a superficial level. Can I fit into these jeans? Does my bum look huge in this? When I was pregnant, it was suddenly like, "God, this is what my body is for".'
Now pregnant with her second child – due in August – Kate has found the last few months to be gruelling. 'I thought I had morning sickness the last time round,' she says. 'Now, I realise I didn't even know what the term meant. This time has been horrific. I've also been having the most peculiar cravings. Marmite mostly. And beetroot smoothies.'
She finds it particularly funny that, just at the moment when her morning sickness was kicking in, the men's magazine Nuts voted her top of their WISA (Women I Secretly Adore) poll.
She's as chuffed, of course, as any 41-year-old nauseous mum-to-be would be. 'Was I flattered? God, yes. People always say they don't take any notice of these polls. Well, I do. I was calling everyone I know.
'Of course one of my friends took the wind out of my sails and asked, "Who was second?" and it turned out to be Loose Women's Jackie Brambles. Now, I think she's wonderful, of course, but if it had been Angelina Jolie, it would have been that much sweeter.'
Seriously, though, she is in her 40s, in a notoriously cutthroat and youth-obsessed industry, one which can often seem incompatible with family life. Does she understand why even people like Phillips, at the top of their game, wake up one day and wonder if this is what they really want?
'I think I probably feel that less than many people do because it totally works for my family life too. Touch wood, I don't have the pressures Fiona did. My parents are in good health, and the job fits in with taking care of Darcey.'
What's astonishing is that she and her husband, psychotherapist Derek Draper, have managed so far without formal childcare. 'We have my mother-in-law to call on, and neighbours who we routinely abuse,' she says cheerily.
'Obviously, that might all change when the baby comes along. I feel very lucky, actually. I've got friends who work in other jobs and I see that it is much harder to juggle. It would be very difficult if I were peeling Darcey off me to go to work.
I think that I might then come to a point where I'd sit down to look at what had gone wrong. For me, there's a balance and I know that if I do too many hours in a week, it will affect her. She'll do something like wake up in the night and say, "Oh, mum, will you read me a story?" which she never does if I'm there a lot.'
Were her bosses horrified at discovering she was pregnant again, so soon after the reshuffle shenanigans? 'I think they might have been alarmed if I'd announced it in the same week Fiona said she was leaving,' she says, 'but, by the time I found out, things had settled down and Emma was on board.
I think they appreciate that it's good to have presenters who are mums, because most of our viewers are, too. You often come at things from a different perspective. I saw this myself recently with all the kerfuffle about Cerrie Burnell, the CBeebies presenter who was born with part of her right arm missing. Darcey asked me why the lady had no arm, and it threw me. I realised that I'd thought about the debate like a journalist, but I hadn't thought like a mum.'
Of course, Emma isn't married or thinking about children yet. I wonder whether Kate feels that the breakfast sofa job is more suited to younger women? Tactful as ever, she says that it's good for viewers to have a balance.
'What's nice is that Emma is at the start of that journey. I don't want to wish marriage and motherhood on her yet, but there will come a time for it, and it's nice for the viewers to see someone through that. I met Derek during my time at GMTV, got married, became a mum, all in front of the cameras.'
Are the mad hours – she gets up at 4am, for goodness sake, and needs to be in bed by 9pm – better for mums or singletons? 'Oh, for mums, because, you want to go to bed early anyway because you're so exhausted. When I was young and wanted to go out and try and be cool and funky, emphasis on the word "try", you hate the fact that you need to be in bed by 10pm. It plays havoc with any social life.'
The big question now is what will happen on the GMTV sofa when Kate goes off to have her baby. She concedes that she will probably hurry back, rather than take a lengthy maternity leave. 'Let's face it, in TV people tend not to take a full year off, like they might in something like teaching.'
So how will they manage when she is off changing nappies? She thinks Emma will step into her shoes, doing five mornings a week while she's on maternity. That, she says, with a wicked laugh, will soon sort out her freshfaced complexion. 'By the time I get back, she'll be looking haggard, the poor soul
Credot: Mail
