Jeremy Vine predicts end of BBC Radio 2 career after near-death bike accident
Jeremy Vine has confessed that he already knows that he will be ok when he's eventually told that he's 'too old' for broadcasting. Speaking to hosts of the How to be 60 podcast, Kaye Adams and Karen MacKenzie, the BBC Radio 2 host, 58, told them if he gets a tap on the shoulder from bosses telling him his time has come because there are new people coming through, he’ll be ok with it.
As the latest listening figures show BBC Radio 2 has lost over one million listeners as the station continues to shift towards a younger audience listenership, Vine says that when the time comes for him to be replaced by a younger presenter amid the shakeup, he won't feel any bitterness towards BBC bosses.
“We have to accept that because what you cannot do is say ‘how unfair’ - the unfairness is we’ve done it for so long. So, I think I’ll be cool with it actually, I think I will. I’m the oldest one now, I was the youngest one for ages, but I don’t really go for public panic," he said on a podcast. “I’m so uncomfortable talking about my own professional demise. I can’t quite factor it in, and I do think that we all have to be aware that it’s coming for all of us.”
Jeremy Vine says he’ll be ‘cool’ when his time is up on Radio 2 (Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Jeremy is now the 'oldest' BBC Radio 2 presenter (BBC/Ray Burmiston)It comes after the TV star revealed that he feels 'lucky to be alive' after surviving a freak accident. The broadcaster has revealed that he almost fell to his death from nine feet up while on his Penny Farthing and the incident ended with him falling directly on his head.
The TV star, 58, accidentally rode his bicycle over some grass and hit a divot before he fell from a huge height and was left unconscious after the horror accident. Jeremy has confessed that he feels lucky to have working limbs, insisting that it's a miracle he didn't end up with worse injuries after the 'Olympic-style' fall.
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Although Jeremy was wearing a helmet at the time of the incident, the broadcaster has no memory of any of it happening after the accident was wiped from his memory when he landed on his head. Opening up about the horrific accident on the How To Be 60 podcast, Jeremy recalled: "I had a near-death experience a year ago where I fell off, I mean it is ridiculous, I fell off a Penny Farthing.
"I had been learning to ride a Penny Farthing. It's brilliant because everybody laughs and stares – it's great. However, the one thing nobody said to me is if it stops suddenly, you are only going one place. You are going over the handlebars, that's it. And your head is nearly nine feet up," he told. "I was knocked out, but the person who saw it said it was like something from the Olympics."
Jeremy escaped the horror accident with just a black eye (@JeremyVineOn5/Twitter)"He said at one point, 'You were a star shape and upside down mid-air'. So I hit the ground, I was wearing a helmet but that's kind of irrelevant. All the air was knocked out of me. I was knocked out. And I couldn't remember any of it."
Jeremy went on to confess that he believes it's a miracle that he wasn't in any way permanently damaged after the fall as he recognises the severity of the accident. The TV star has confessed that he feels 'lucky' to have not ended up in a wheelchair after falling from a huge height.
"Amazingly, I went to A&E, and they did every kind of test – X-Rays, MRIs," Jeremy said on the podcast. "And yeah, I was right as rain. I thought okay, you only have that amount of luck once. Because that really could have ended up with me using a wheelchair for the rest of my life or only communicating by blinking."
Jeremy first took up his Penny Farthing hobby a number of years ago with his brother Tim. The broadcaster spent one month learning how to cycle the antique-style bicycle and has never looked back since. Even after his horror accident, Jeremy was back on his beloved bike just six days later.
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