After quitting Loose Women I was ‘washed up’. Then I lost all my money

Like so many of life’s disasters, it happened slowly, then all at once. We lost our business during Covid. It was the business I had left my high-flying TV job for as the host of ITV’s multi-award-winning daytime show Loose Women for, and my husband and I had used our own money to invest in. The closing down of the business took a while and ate greedily into our pot, which reduced at an alarming rate with nothing to refill it. Then a business friend offered a lifeline with an offer to come in as joint partners on a new venture they were starting, which gave us much-needed hope and the promise of a much-needed income. We worked on the proposal, and even turned down another offer because we were told it was too similar to the project we would be undertaking, and there was a conflict of interest. Our money was now going down fast and our nerves were stretched, but we held tight – it was going to be OK. Then, at the 11th hour, the offer to partner with them in their new business was withdrawn. I was told: “Your star has faded, Andrea. You are no longer who you used to be. Go and get a job on TV again, and when you are more famous, let’s have another chat and see what we can do.” It was the end of the line. I was washed up, past it, broke, with it seemed no hope of ever finding work again. How did we cope? Differently. My husband became focused and driven, batting away any kind of emotion about our circumstances, focusing purely on possible solutions. I also became practical and creative, thinking about what my skills were, and how I could offer them. But I keenly felt the loss of status and identity that came with being a famous person off the telly who once had cars sent to collect her and was paid handsomely for her work, to someone who couldn’t get a response when applying for a job in a coffee shop. All of the emotions came to the surface; shame, humiliation and embarrassment. We found little pockets of happiness during this time, doing things that didn’t cost much, if anything at all. One Sunday, we set off into the cold, holding a small flask of coffee we had made at home to share. We walked for a few miles to a park near the river in London, and sat on a bench watching the world go by, sipping our coffee. Then, my husband asked if I fancied sharing a croissant? This was a lot; we hadn’t treated ourselves to anything like this in months. He bought one from the café in the park and we shared it, snuggled in our coats against the cold, and it felt as if we had won the lottery. I was still recovering from Covid when I got sick again – this time with severe pneumonia, kidney failure and sepsis. I was admitted to hospital and then spent months as an outpatient having tests and trying to build my strength back. This final straw changed everything. We realised that we spend our time working towards a perfect life, where one day we can do what we really want to do, and this proved that we don’t know how long we have. I have always wanted to live in the sun, by the sea. It was a someday dream for the future, when life was good and we could relax and enjoy it. My youngest was accepted into university in Spain, and we realised we could fly the nest at the same time as the kids. They wouldn’t be leaving us behind; we would be jetting off on new adventures too. We looked into the logistics and cost, and if we sold the rest of our belongings and cashed in my pension early, not only would we pay off our debts, but we would have enough money to get us there and survive for a few months while we figured out next steps. So we did it. And here we are. One year later, we now live in a small flat near the sea on the Costa del Sol. I am well. We make enough money to live on, and hopefully we will soon be able to start building up a pot of savings again. Our life is smaller than it ever was; there are no fancy cars picking me up anymore, and our own car is an old second-hand one that constantly has every light flashing and the windscreen washers don’t always work. But I am healthy. I walk my dog to the beach in the mornings and look out to sea. We are at our laptops every day, creating, writing, pitching ideas, working. We have made new friends, who have accepted who we are and the situation we are in, with no judgement. We aren’t trying to keep up with anyone, we have what we have, and that is enough. This isn’t how I thought my life would look in my fifties, and I certainly didn’t foresee it when I was presenting to millions of viewers every day on the telly. But I can honestly say I have never felt happier. This week I have been… Reading… Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. I grabbed this at the airport on one of my trips back to London, and I haven’t been able to put it down. It reminds me of Gone Girl with its anti-heroine narration; the character is flawed, cold, and brutally realistic with her desire to create a better life for herself, no matter what. The flip-flopping between timelines, when she finds herself somehow transported back to the cold, muddy reality of the Instagram-perfect version of the tradwife lifestyle she pretends to inhibit is stark, and curious. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m enjoying it. Listening to… The Sliding Doors podcast. I’m a big fan of this series, which has the simple premise of interviewing interesting celebrities, Olympians, authors and entrepreneurs about three key incidents in their lives when a decision or a meeting changed everything for them. Host Jennie Becker is wonderful, taking both the guest and the listener on a journey of discovery as they unpack why they made the decisions they did, and impact that chance meetings have had on the direction of their life. It’s something we can all relate to, no matter what we do for a living. I always finish each episode knowing more about the person than I did before, in the most human way. Swimming… in the sea every day. Now that the weather is warmer and the sea temperature is bearable, I have shifted my morning dog walk to include a swim in the sea. I am not a cold-water plunge kind of person, so there is no way I would be doing this in winter! I am really enjoying it, and the fact that my six-year-old cavapoo Teddy now knows the drill. He lays down patiently by my discarded bag and shoes, and waits for me to swim up and down, before we head home for a coffee and a shower, and to start my working day. My favourite part is that I can walk home with my shoes in my hand, barefoot on the sand, grass and pavement, right to my front door. Magical. ‘Shameless’ by Andrea McLean is out now (DK Red, £16.99)