06 August 2023 , 06:00
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She’s been a constant, joyous presence on breakfast television for a quarter of a century. But in some ways, life for Carol Kirkwood is only just getting started.
Now 61, she is enjoying loved-up, pre-wedded bliss with her police officer fiancé Steve Randall and has just released her third novel, Secrets Of The Villa Amore. When we speak to Carol on a Monday afternoon, she has been up and about for more than 12 hours (but you would never know it, given the infectious energy that she seems to bring to everything she does) and is arriving back at her Berkshire home after a morning’s shift presenting the weather on BBC’s Breakfast.
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Not only has she travelled to and from London to report the weather from Wimbledon, but she has been doing the rounds to publicise her latest book, in the hope it will be her third bestseller.
BBC presenter Carol Kirkwood is very much in love with her fiancé Steve Randall (carolkirkwood/Twitter)
Carol opened up about her relationship after releasing her third novel, Secrets Of The Villa Amore (Can Nguyen/REX/Shutterstock)Given her 3am daily wake-up calls, where does she find the time and energy to write a book? “You know that expression, ‘If you want a job done, give it to a busy person,’” she laughs. “If you have to do something, you’ll do it. I work to deadlines all the time, my day is a collapsing time frame.
“From the minute I get up to the minute I finish on television, I have a deadline every 15 minutes, so I’m used to working under pressure. But writing a book is exciting, it’s not a chore.” Carol has no intention of letting her fast-paced lifestyle ease off any time soon. In fact, as we’re chatting, she lets slip that she has just handed over the manuscript to the fourth book she has been writing – before the third has even hit the shelves.
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“It’s weird because I never thought I’d be doing this, and I never in my wildest dreams thought that my first two books would be as well received as they have been,” she tells us. “I’m so grateful because it’s such good fun… It’s so liberating.” As a relative newcomer to the bookshelves, we imagine Carol enjoys a wee nosy to see her own work? “Yes, of course I do,” she laughs. “I’ve rearranged the shelves in the bookshop before, put mine at the front. My family and friends do it too, so someone might spot that the first 20 bestsellers are all Carol, because all the books have been rearranged!”
Aside from her literary success, there are equally exciting things going on in Carol’s life at the moment, especially when it comes to her life away from Breakfast. After divorcing Jimmy, her husband of 25 years, in the late 2000s, Carol embarked on a new relationship in 2021. Steve, who is 13 years her junior, popped the question last year.
Her latest novel centres around a wedding, so can we assume that she has marriage on the brain? “Yes, I do want to get married again,” she says emphatically. “We’re very happy and we’re loved up, and we’re delighted to be together, but
we haven’t got a wedding date yet. I think we’ll have an intimate wedding. We don’t want to just squeeze it in, we want it to be a celebration.”
Steve is a “kind” man, she adds, and tells us that he makes her a cup of tea when her alarm goes off at an eye-wateringly early 2.45am every weekday. “Even though I say to him every time, ‘Don’t get up, you go back to sleep,’ he always insists on getting me my tea,” she beams.
“He’s so kind, and that’s really important to me. I know kindness is a buzzword at the moment, but it’s really important in a relationship.” Carol wasn’t actively seeking a new relationship and she says she has learnt that “your own happiness is down to you”. That said, her partner clearly makes her incredibly happy.
“You should be reliant on yourself for happiness” she says, “and if somebody else also makes you happy, that’s a huge bonus. "I’ve learnt that you’re the author of your own destiny. If you want to remain happy, don’t make your life difficult – and surround yourself with people who lift your spirits.”
While writing a book was written in the stars for Carol, becoming an author was never actually on her bucket list. That is perhaps a surprise, as she lights up when she tells us how she “loved” writing essays at school and making up elaborate bedtime stories for her nieces and nephews. But it’s been a slow and steady road, taking her 40 years to turn her hobby into a job.
Carol has an extremely early wake up call for BBC Breakfast (BBC/James Stack)“You only have one life,” she says. “It’s never too late to make a change. If you want to do something, try it. The worst thing that can happen is you’re going to fail, but at least you’ve tried it. I’d rather just do it, than be 70 and think, ‘Oh, I wish I’d done that, just to see if I could’.
“And I’m not fooling myself – if I worked somewhere else and if I wasn’t on television, I’m sure nobody would have asked me to write a book. But they did, and it was another opportunity to grab.”
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Carol is, of course, best known to millions as the face of Breakfast weather, which is no surprise given that it has been her professional home for the past 25 years. After studying for a degree in business, she joined the secretarial unit at the BBC, before being hired as a production assistant. She joined BBC News – then known as News 24 – in 1998 and has stayed put ever since, celebrating her quarter-century BBC anniversary in April.
“I love my job,” she smiles. “I’m privileged. I get to go to places that I may not otherwise be able to go to when I’m doing outside broadcasts.” One of those “places” is behind the scenes at the Championships at Wimbledon, which is an annual event in Carol’s calendar and one of her favourite places to be.
Despite spending her mornings with Centre Court as her backdrop, watching the exhilarating games sadly isn’t a perk of the job.
“I never watch more than the odd minute of a match,” she laughs. “I always come home and watch it on the telly instead!”
When she is not enjoying the British summer – ever the weather woman, she tells us that this year’s was the “hottest June on record” – she is travelling to all the places she writes about in her books.
They are all set in much sunnier climes than she is used to reporting from and her latest offering is no different, centring around “scandal and secrets” during a wedding on Italy’s stunning Amalfi Coast.
We tell her we suspect a certain glamorous-looking Scottish blonde named Philippa Russo in the novel might be based on herself, but
Carol sets us straight.
“So my best friend is called Philippa, and I wanted to call a character after Philippa, although the character is nothing like the real Philippa,” she laughs. “And I wanted her to be Scottish because up until now I haven’t had any Scottish characters in my books because I didn’t want anybody to think I was writing about myself.
“Trust me, my life isn’t as busy oras exciting as my characters’ lives!” She says the inspiration comes rom everywhere, even from Steve. “When we go out walking, I might say, ‘Oh I’m stuck with this’ and he’ll suggest things,” she smiles.
“And it might be that his suggestion is a really good one or I’ll think, ‘No, my character wouldn’t do that, but he would do this,’ so Steve will spark something.”
Aside from conjuring up sizzling summer reads, Carol says she is happy to enjoy “the simple pleasures in life” now, especially when those involve partner Steve.
The thing that makes her the happiest of all, she jokes, is when she opens her diary and sees a free weekend with nothing planned, meaning that she and Steve can “make it up as we go along”. "So it might be, you know, going into the garden or just going for a long walk with a picnic,” she explains.
“I love doing that and in the evening sitting in the garden with a glass of wine, just the simple pleasures in life. I would rather do that than be gallivanting off here, there and everywhere, because I’m so busy during the week. I just want to be at home, settled and in my own space.”
SECRETS OF THE VILLA AMORE BY CAROL KIRKWOOD IS OUT NOW, £16.99, PUBLISHED BY HARPER COLLINS