Broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire has revealed her ‘very upsetting experience’ of suffering a miscarriage on a plane and told of how she still kept working despite the traumatic ordeal.
The BBC Newsnight presenter said on a podcast it was ‘bizarre’ how ‘pragmatic’ she was at the time and added she could not bring herself to talk about it for five years – though she usually ‘talks about everything’.
Ms Derbyshire, married to producer Mark Sandell, now has two sons Oliver, 20, and Joe, 17 and she said the boys think ‘fondly’ of the fact they could have had a sister.
Talking to the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast, the 56-year-old said: ‘We had a miscarriage first, that was very upsetting.
‘I’m a talker, I talk about everything. I’m very open – maybe it’s partly because of the way I was brought up; we talked to my mum about all the crap that was going on.
‘That was one thing I couldn’t talk about for about five years; it was so odd, I could not speak about it. My boys know I had that miscarriage and they think fondly ‘what if that had been a sister’. I know what we’d have called her; they would have liked to have a sister.
‘I actually had the miscarriage on a plane; I was so practical and pragmatic I was like, ‘well this is happening now and I’m going to work’ and I just carried on; it’s absolutely bizarre.’
Ms Derbyshire also revealed that being in her 50s has not stopped her feeling broody and she would love to have another baby with her husband Mark.
The broadcaster explained: ‘I feel like, obviously I can’t now, I’m in my 50s and I haven’t had a period since chemotherapy, [but] I feel like I could have a baby now, isn’t that mad? I love being the mum of a newborn.’
Looking back on her miscarriage, the journalist said it was likely she didn’t give herself enough time to process her grief, preferring to keep busy.
She added: ‘I was happy to go through the pregnancy, happy to eat loads of food and you know, put loads of weight on. I loved it, I loved it, yeah,’
After a relationship of 17 years, Ms Derbyshire married Mark in 2018 with their sons walking her down the aisle.
In 2015, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. At the time, she continued to present her current affairs show as often as possible during her treatment.
Only last month, Ms Derbyshire also revealed the extent of trauma she suffered at the hands of her father Anthony who would throw scalding soup over her as a youngster.
She also recounted a seemingly cool and laid back approach, recalling: ‘I didn’t say anything, I didn’t scream. I just got up, went to the sink and washed it off.’
When she and her siblings heard their father’s key in the door as he returned home from work, they would hide in their bedrooms and shut the door.
Derbyshire said that despite the circumstances she would try not to flinch when her father struck her.
Her father, who died in 2020, denied hitting his children but has previously admitted striking his ex-wife, claiming she was aggressive to him.
