Countryfile presenter Helen Skelton: I must be some sort of masochist
BECOMING a mother second time around is a labour of love for action girl Helen Skelton.
“I must be some sort of masochist,” admits heavily pregnant but irrepressibly chirpy Countryfile presenter Helen Skelton as she contemplates her latest challenge.
Delivering your second baby in a foreign country with your friends and family – and possibly even your husband – hundreds of miles away back in England wouldn’t be every prospective mother’s idea of a harmonious birth plan, but the dairy farmer’s daughter from Cumbria is unfazed by the uncertainly.
“My mum is having kittens and my dad and brother have both said, ‘Typical Helen – she has to do everything the hard way,’ and maybe I am being naive and idiotic,” says Helen, 33, who has been enjoying life in Perpignan in the south of France since 2015.
In September that year, her England rugby league international husband Richie Myler transferred to Super League team Catalans Dragons.
“I thought, ‘Having the baby in France will be a great thing to do. I can cope and it will be a great adventure, even though Richie is scheduled to be playing in England when I’m due in mid-April.’
But there are loads of flights back, so we just keep our fingers crossed.
“And for me, putting yourself through pain is good training for life,” says Helen, who during her action-packed stint as a Blue Peter presenter from 2008 to 2013 conquered an epic list of record-breaking challenges, including a 78-mile ultra marathon in Namibia, a 2,010-mile kayak down the Amazon and an expedition by bike, kite ski and cross-country ski to the South Pole.
“It’s like when we moved to France. I had a three-month-old baby. I didn’t have any friends or family and I was scared, but then I was like, ‘Hang on, I’ve done tougher than this.’ It’s about being scared and pushing through that. I think that it’s really, really important to be scared.”
So how much of a challenge has her second pregnancy been, bearing in mind the cultural and linguistic differences?
“My French is conversational and social, and works on a night out with a couple of glasses of wine on board. But it’s not so good in a gynaecologist’s appointment, so I have had some very confusing moments.
“I went for an appointment and had an injection, and I still don’t know what it was for. But I’m very independent and I wanted to stick with this whole life in France lifestyle and thought, ‘We’ll do this. We’ll boss this.’”
Unlike Helen’s first labour back in the UK in June 2015, resulting in the arrival of now 21-month-year-old Ernie, she’ll be taking a less holistic approach.
“With Ernie, I was all about the pain-free birth in the water with aromatherapy, but life teaches you a few things. I’ve had friends who’ve had awful situations and my little boy’s cord was round his neck, so I’m a bit more realistic that it is a big deal and stuff does go wrong, so I’m more nervous this time.
And last time I’d left it too late for any pain relief, but you don’t win any medals for that so I’ll be asking for the drugs very early on.”
Currently back in London to promote a British Lion campaign to spread the word on the health benefits of eating more eggs, Helen says Ernie has been enjoying blowing raspberries on her blossoming belly and can’t wait for him to bond with his new sibling.
Helen Skelton confuses an image of space with a screensaver
“France isn’t very good at the whole mummy and baby group thing, so Ernie spent most of his first year with a team of rugby league players. He’s a real little show-off; a real character. He’s very, very affectionate but not so great with kids and doesn’t really know what to do with them.”
One relationship clearly blooming is Ernie’s unbreakable bond with his father Richie, who at 26 is seven years Helen’s junior.
“There are times when I get annoyed with Richie because he’s not good at taking out the bins or doing the paperwork, but when it comes to being a dad he’s amazing.
I couldn’t have asked for more.
“He’s very, very hands on and I’m very, very lucky but it does drive me a little crazy when we say to Ernie, ‘Who’s your best friend?’ and he’ll always go, ‘Dada.’
It doesn’t matter how much you bribe him, he always says, ‘Dada.’
The couple, who married at St Michael’s Church in Helen’s childhood village of Kirkby Thore in 2013, are still very much in their honeymoon period.
“We’re lucky because we have nights away from each other because of our jobs and then when we get back together, we get to do fun stuff. We’re very different but he just makes me laugh and he’s even more laid-back than me, so where some of our friends say, ‘How can you live with not knowing what you’ll be doing when Richie’s contract ends in September?’
Richie just says, ‘Don’t worry – it’ll take care of itself,’ and I’m happy with that uncertainty because life is uncertain.
Helen Skelton hints at active sex life with her husband
“If I knew what I was doing for the next 10 years of my life that would stress me out.”
One stress Helen could probably do without is a repeat of last summer’s media storm when she found herself front-page news for daring to wear a moderately flesh-revealing outfit while presenting the BBC’s swimming coverage at the Rio Olympics.
“I thought the amount of attention my legs got was a little bit sad when you consider that Adam Peaty had just broken the world record by a mile and won a gold medal. But you have to just laugh about it. Moaning about it is just putting more attention on to something I’m not really bothered about. I just thought it was funny and I didn’t buy into any of it.
“I’m a genuinely really busy person. I split my time between France and the UK; I’m a working woman. I don’t have any childcare.
I don’t have any time to Google myself or read what’s in the papers about me, as I just don’t think that’s healthy. All I care about is what my husband thinks, what my baby boy thinks and what my friends think.
“People think that behind closed doors, I must have had this massive insular reaction, but the truth is I couldn’t care less.”
And rather than be deflated by a second onslaught of unwanted attention later last summer when photos of a teenage Helen sunbathing topless on holiday surfaced online, she simply kept calm and carried on.
“I was 17 when they were taken,” explains Helen, “so as a mum of one I was quite happy about it. I don’t look like that any more so if everyone wants to think that’s what I look like now, fine.
“It was a bit mortifying walking into the office and seeing my colleagues looking at the pictures, but it doesn’t make me think I don’t want to be in the public eye any more.
“It’d be different if I had paparazzi hanging over my garden wall trying to take pictures, but that doesn’t happen and I haven’t got another job anyway. I can’t do anything else other than talk out loud.”
By the time baby number two arrives, Helen will have finished her latest presenting stint on Countryfile, and despite successful stints deputising for Lorraine Kelly on her morning ITV show and rumours of a prime-time BBC project, she has no concrete work plans for the future.
“My mum probably started that rumour,” jokes Helen, “I’d love to do more Lorraine if they asked me back, as I love live TV where no two days are the same, but I don’t have any prime-time offers right now.
“Would I like one? Yes, but to me success is what you make it. I might not have a prime-time series, but
I like my job and I have a nice
time whatever project I’m on.
“And I’m so much more relaxed about life since becoming a mum.
I used to think, ‘I should be doing this job or that job.’ But now if I’ve got Ernie and I’m not working I’m like, ‘Suits me. More time off with my boy.’”
With such a positive mental attitude, Helen is unlikely to veer too far from our TV screens over the next few years. But wherever her career takes her, family and friends will remain her primary focus.
“By the time I’m 40, I’d like to still be happily married,” she says. “That sounds like I’ve got a terrible marriage – I haven’t – but people take marriage for granted.
“I’d like more kids, too, but Richie’s not so sure. His theory is ‘man marked’. Two means one each. Any more means you’re outnumbered, so we’ll just see what happens.”
Helen is a British Lion eggs ambassador. Check out her favourite recipes at eggrecipes.co.uk.