She may be gearing up to host the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain awards but 64-year-old Carol Vorderman reveals she may be gettting older but she’s still down with the youngsters
Carol Vorderman jokes she’s “getting trendy with the youngsters” as she ages, having sworn – mostly – off the booze.
The 64-year-old broadcast legend, who is gearing up to host the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards, with P&O Cruises, later this month alongside Ashley Banjo, is following in the footsteps of sober Gen Z-ers and cutting out alcohol.
“I’m out all the time at the moment – I’ve just had the best summer of my life,” says Carol. “I’ve never smoked, I’ve literally never done a recreational drug in my life. I used to go out and get merry, but now I hardly drink either. But I’m having a great time.”
After spending the summer enjoying mini-breaks with “the gays and the girls”, and catching up with old friends, Carol now can’t wait to meet her extended Pride of Britain family at the star-studded show next week.
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“It’s just wonderful to be in the same room with all the winners,” she says. “It lifts you. With all this terrible stuff in the news, you get to hear the stories about good people, who get drowned out otherwise. I think it’s ever more important that we celebrate them.”
And the incredible winners this year will get their own moment the night before the glittering awards ceremony at Carol and Ashley’s informal ‘Winners’ Dinner’. “We started doing this a few years ago, getting all the winners and their families round the table and we go through the running order,” she explains.
“We briefly tell each person’s story and the reason they’ve won their award, and then everyone cheers. Then, every time, they go, ‘oh, isn’t so-and-so amazing, I completely understand why they’ve won an award, but I don’t understand why I have.’ Every year they do this!”
But being able to celebrate the nation’s ordinary people who have done extraordinary things is the best part of Carol’s job – while witnessing them forge close friendships is a close second. “They’re all extraordinary. And by their nature, they seem to all be modest, and by that same nature, they love other people,” she says.
“So I think it’s very easy for people like that to form a ‘framily’ – that’s what they call them now, a family of friends. I know there’s at least six WhatsApp groups from last year’s winners – and several of them are all going on the same P&O Cruises ship to the Caribbean in November.”
Just days before the awards show, Carol is being recognised by her Cambridge University college with an honorary fellowship as Sidney Sussex marks 50 years since it allowed the first women to enrol as undergraduates.
“I went 47 years ago, so I was in the third year there that they took women,” she remembers. “I’ve won a children’s BAFTA in the past and various other awards, but this, for a nerd and a geek like me, is the equivalent of an Oscar and BAFTA combined.
“My role will be to encourage kids from my kind of background, particularly girls – from state school, on free school meals – to apply to Cambridge,” she says proudly. “I’m delighted with it.”
Source: Mirror
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