Kate Garraway, the darling of the GMTV sofa, knew things had gone too far
when the Home Secretary expressed concern about her weight loss. And John
Reid wasn’t the only one: after her return from maternity leave last summer,
GMTV received a barrage of mail about what viewers assumed was the GMTV
Todaypresenter’s anorexia. Overnight she had become one of those mothers
who are vilified for zipping themselves back into their size 6 jeans within
weeks of giving birth.
Garraway says: “GMTV started getting loads of e-mails and letters from
viewers, saying: Why is she so skinny? Why is she obsessively dieting? It
looks like she’s trying to turn herself into a size 0 model! One mother
wrote: ‘My daughter watches this show, I always thought Kate Garraway was a
good example of a curvy healthy woman. Now she’s clearly got an eating
disorder; why haven’t you taken her off the air?’ I got really upset about
it.
“It was a real-eye opener in terms of how obsessed we all are with how people
look. Everyone just assumed that I had an eating disorder. Nobody thought
that I might be ill.”
In fact, Garraway’s dramatic weight loss had nothing to do with obsessive
dieting. In January, tests showed that she had an overactive thyroid, a
fairly common complication in the months after giving birth. The irony is
that Garraway — aka “curvy Kate” — has never been a dieter and was always
pretty relaxed about her prepregnancy weight of between 8½st and 9st (54kg
to 57kg). It’s true that she was always careful about what she ate, went to
the gym regularly and did a lot of running (she even took part in a
marathon). She didn’t even mind the gentle digs in the mags about putting on
a tad too much weight during her pregnancy; actually, it was just a fairly
standard 3st.
She had expected to take months to get her figure back. So she was thrilled —
who wouldn’t be? — when, without even trying, she was nearly back to her
prepregnancy weight by the time she went back to work four months after
giving birth. She began to worry only when, towards the end of last year,
she was still losing weight rapidly, despite eating huge meals. But the GP
reassured her that the weight loss was simply on account of breast-feeding
and a busy life. In any case, she felt fantastic and had plenty of energy,
which was a warning sign in itself.
By the time her weight dropped to 7½st the paparazzi were permanently camped
outside her London home, hoping to catch a snap of her looking gaunt and
emaciated. Her husband, the former Labour spin-doctor Derek Draper, offered
her typically blunt advice: never go out without a pie in your hand.
Garraway might never have found out about her overactive thyroid if she hadn’t
taken her baby daughter, Darcey, now a year old, to the GP with a bad cold.
As soon as she walked in the doctor noticed that her weight loss had
continued. Tests revealed that her thyroid had gone “stratospheric” and she
was prescribed metabolic depressants, strong drugs that slow the body’s
metabolic rate.
Overactive and underactive thyroid conditions that develop in the months after
giving birth often go undiagnosed. An underactive thyroid causes exhaustion
and can be linked to postnatal depression, while an overactive thyroid can
cause anxiety, a rapid heart rate and difficulty concentrating.
Many new mothers, like Garraway, understandably ignore the symptoms, which
they assume are because of hormonal changes and the demands of a young baby.
She says: “In a calmer job I might have noticed the butterflies in my
stomach, but presenting a live TV show every day you live on adrenalin, and
I just thought I was feeling perky. I certainly wasn’t aware of
palpitations. In many ways it was great because I was full of beans and I
could eat as much as I liked: chips and pudding.”
Having bags of energy might seem a bonus when you’ve got a new baby, a 3am
start and a new prime-time show in the offing: Garraway is a judge on the
new National Lottery People’s Quiz, a kind of X Factor
with general knowledge, with Myleene Klass and Jamie Theakston, on BBC One
tonight.
In fact, Garraway’s body was being pushed to its limits and she was in danger
of collapsing. When the GP rang with the test results, Garraway was about to
go away for the weekend. She recalls: “I asked if I could wait until Monday
to get the drugs and she said I had to get them immediately because my heart
was racing and I needed to get it under control. She warned me that if left
untreated I would start having palpitations and could ultimately even suffer
heart failure and collapse.”
After only two months on the treatment, Garraway is nearly back up to her
prepregnancy weight of just under 9st. She is only slightly regretful that
the drugs made her give up breast-feeding earlier than she intended. Her
thyroid is now regularly monitored to see what further treatment, if any,
will be necessary.
Her main concern is that it is not advisable to conceive while taking
metabolic drugs. Garraway, 38, is keen to have more children in the fullness
of time; Draper wants four kids, but she’s not so sure.
She thinks the drugs have probably made her less hyper, although she says that
she’s always been a bit like that. She certainly talks nineteen to the
dozen. The only time she stops is when the subject of smoking comes up. Late
in her pregnancy she was reported to have been spotted having a furtive fag
break in her car. It brought her the first taste of the kind of public
disapproval that comes with the territory of a very public pregnancy. She
refuses point blank to talk about it and the silence is deafening.
It’s hard to imagine Garraway smoking a cigarette. But she’s full of
surprises. To prepare for labour a friend organised for her to have a
Brazilian wax, a pedicure and a fake tan. Yet when it came to the labour,
Garraway is so polite that she didn’t swear once or scream; perhaps, she
says, it was because Draper was filming the whole thing and she
instinctively watches her language in front of the camera. And it was a
comparatively easy birth: eight hours in a pool with gas and air, with the
actual delivery on a birthing stool.
Then there are the legendary Garraway-signed bananas: one man paid thousands
for one that she’d half-eaten; a photograph of her eating another for
charity cheers up employees of a firm in Wales. A copy of it was sent out
alongside her parents’ very respectable wedding invitations; she blames her
husband.
But perhaps the most surprising thing is her second marriage, to Draper, which
even she admits is “a little bit Lady and the Tramp. We are
very different”. When they first met in 2004 — six years after Draper was at
the centre of the Lobbygate scandal, in which it appeared that private
businessmen were being offered privileged access to Downing Street — she was
one of the few people with no idea of “the legend that is Derek Draper”.
She has only ever known him as what he is now, a psychotherapist, after three
years of training in California. She says: “Being married to a
psychotherapist can be really annoying. In the middle of a row he’ll say:
‘This is what I think and I’m qualified to say it.’ But it is quite
tongue-in-cheek.
“He’s just a northern ragamuffin really — I’m more likely to say: ‘Excuse me,
would you mind awfully?’; whereas he’ll just say: ‘Do it!’ I think the
difference between us is a strength in our relationship. I talk a lot but I
can be a little nervous about saying what I actually think. Whereas he takes
things I say literally, so I’ve learnt to be more direct. We end up
communicating quite well.”
They had been together for about a year when she discovered, purely by
accident, and as the result of another health scare, that she was pregnant.
A year earlier a growth was found on her kidney; fortunately, it turned out
not to be cancer. But when the symptoms returned she went back for further
tests and, because they involved radiation, she had to have a routine
pregnancy test beforehand.
The positive result was a surprise. She says: “I was flummoxed. We weren’t
trying for a baby; in fact, it wasn’t remotely in my mind. But I was also
delighted because I did want children.
And it was quite good to have pregnancy imposed on me. As a working woman
you’re always waiting for the right moment; I’m not sure the right moment
ever comes. So I’m glad fate stepped in.” She announced her engagement on
GMTV shortly afterwards.
Inevitably the couple have been mooted as a kind of political Richard and
Judy. Garraway likes the idea, although it might affect their box and cox
childcare arrangements. So far they’ve been able to manage without a nanny
by sharing childcare with both their mothers and two trusted babysitters.
Draper is totally hands-on and besotted. Garraway feeds Darcey at 2.30am,
before she leaves for GMTV and, if the baby hasn’t settled by the time her
car arrives, she hands her to Draper. He also takes over at the weekends
while she’s working on the People’s Quiz.
Garraway is clearly still ambitious but, she says: “I turn down a lot more
work now — I don’t say yes to the kinds of jobs you do just to pay for the
kitchen. I’m prioritising Darcey. Of all my friends who work I think I’ve
got the best deal because I get to see so much of her.”
The National Lottery People’s Quiz is on BBC One today at 7.35pm
