Christine Lampard shares how Frank is key to summer stint presenting Lorraine
For most mums, the summer holidays mean six weeks of trying to keep the children occupied. But for Christine Lampard, some of the responsibility this year has been handed over to husband Frank, while she fronts ITV's Lorraine in the mornings.
Former footballer and manager Frank is currently between football jobs having finished a stint as Chelsea boss at the end of last season. But he now has his hands full in other ways. Christine says with a smile: “I leave so early, the kids haven’t quite woken up – and I’m being blessed right now as you know with Frank being at home.
“It never happens. In the summertime he has always been away on tour and then pre-season and then the season starts. Who knows what could happen, but certainly at the moment I’m making full use of him being at home. I can leave quietly in the morning and even if they are awake, daddy’s there.
“At this point, we’ve got a fairly good routine. It’s been really good. He knows there will be times where you’re not working. And he’s gotten better at being able to live with that and relax into it. This kids are still so young, they love having him at home.”
Christine with Freddie in New York (Daily Mirror)Christine, 44, has been covering for Lorraine Kelly in the school holiday periods for six years now. The pair get on well and Christine still enjoys the buzz of live TV which showed in the animated chats this week on her return.
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“It feels lovely that Lorraine’s always saying to me ‘oh what’s nice is that I’m going to go have my holiday and it’s in good hands’. You feel empowered that Lorraine has given you her approval because it is very much her show. It’s a great team on the show too. You get some great guests and some very serious stories. I love the way we weave in and out of different things.”
Away from her TV work, Christine’s London home is always busy. She and husband Frank are parents to daughter Patricia, four, and son Freddie, two. And Christine, 44, is also stepmum to Frank’s daughters, Isla, 16, and Luna, 17 from a previous relationship. Although still tiny, Freddie sounds like he is very much a mini Frank – except perhaps for the fact his favourite colour is currently sky blue.
“Freddie loves playing football, as soon as he wakes up he wants to play football with his dad,” Christine said. “He has got lots of kits, the Chelsea one, the Bayern Munich one ... but he is currently obsessed with the Manchester City kit! We have got the two little young ones who are wide-eyed and energetic. They won’t sit still for two seconds. Then the two older girls, they are at a very different stage, things like GCSEs and the eldest is almost 18. They are fantastic with the young ones, like sisters and part-time babysitters.”
Christine and Frank with Isla and Luna (Getty Images)
Freddie and PatriciaThe family have always enjoyed watching films together, and Frank and Freddie no doubt will be watching football in the coming season too. After starting out at West Ham, then spending most of his career with Chelsea, Frank had a spell playing with Manchester City and then finally New York City FC before retiring.
He and Christine spent the end of 2015 and 2016 in the Big Apple to end his playing days. And they have just returned from a trip there – now with the entire blended family of six – and managed to do lots of things together which wasn’t possible when Frank was training hard for matches most days.
Christine says: “We loved our time there but we hadn’t been back to New York since pre-Covid And that was pre the little children. So it was a very different experience this time. It’s really weird so many movies are focused on New York, all the kiddy ones.
“They loved Lyle, Lyle Crocodile and Clifford the Big Red Dog and The Secret Life of Pets. We used to say that ‘that’s the Statue of Liberty and that’s the Brooklyn Bridge’. So we were very adamant if we ever got the opportunity to go, we wanted to take them to the things we have seen in the movies.
Frank Lampard in his playing days (Getty Images)“So we did that, did the whole thing, walking in Central Park, we were a completely tourist family. We walked over into Brooklyn across the bridge too and it was really lovely. We had a great time. The kids loved it, playing on the carousels. Not much had changed, lots of the same people were in the restaurants we used to go to. It was lovely to catch up.”
Although confident on screen, Christine says she still gets butterflies before the cameras roll on Lorraine or Loose Women, which she also fronts and will return to after helping out on Lorraine. She remains worried enough about oversleeping that she sets five alarms on her phone and an emergency old-fashioned battery-powered clock by the bed too on workdays.
In a recent magazine interview, she says she does suffer from anxiety too, and used to worry about her dad going out to play in restaurants or bars as a musician during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Asked if anxiety is still a problem now, perhaps with work, she thinks carefully and says: “There are people who properly suffer. There are plenty of them and I’m not there. I wasn’t looking for any kind of support or sympathy when I said that, it’s not that at all. I was just talking about general stuff, maybe it’s the lack of control that makes me anxious. I’m worrying about Patricia going to school in September.
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“You know, just that idea of being sent away. As parents we all have to do it. But the idea that suddenly ‘oh, she’s away for all these hours in the day’. And then I overthink it, it’s my mum’s fault cos she overthinks things. I pre-empt the dangers before the danger presents it to me. I do that a lot. Sometimes it does work because I’ve spotted something that I know would have caused some form of damage or Freddie would have cracked his head on something.
“I think it’s just probably normal parenting anxiety, as opposed to any form of debilitating issue. I definitely worry about things a lot more since having the children. I still suffer with the same level of that kind of good nerves, I would say at work, before going on live TV. But in real life I’ve got that classic parenting anxiety where I just wish I was a bit more relaxed. You go to soft play and a lot of parents are having a coffee and they look relaxed whereas I am worrying.”
Christine first met Frank at the Mirror’s Pride Of Britain awards in 2009. She said: “It’s such a big night and it is always in the diary for us. I love to help in any way I can. The awards have such a special place in my heart.”
* Christine will be presenting Lorraine this summer, weekdays from 9am on ITV1. She is an ambassador of the Mirror’s Pride Of Britain awards.
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