Less than a year ago, Davina McCall was preparing for a life-or-death moment: an operation to remove a brain tumour. In the days that followed, there was an enormous sense of relief that the surgery was a success, confusion (Davina’s memory was affected) and, Davina has revealed in an exclusive interview with Good Housekeeping, a revelatory moment with the ghost of her late father.
“My dad came to see me in hospital,” explains Davina in her October cover interview. “He was really real, like he was before Alzheimer’s, and he was with me for a whole afternoon. I said to Michael, ‘Dad’s been in.' Michael had been told by the doctors to tell me the truth if I was making mistakes, but he didn’t have the heart to, so he said, ‘How was he?’ I said he looked great and that he was really happy for me and proud that I’d got through it.”
When faced with the tough reality that Davina’s father, Andrew, who died in 2022 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, wasn’t actually at the hospital, Davina explained that she also found some comfort to be found in the situation. “I told Michael the same story the next day, but a few hours later I said, ‘My dad’s dead, isn’t he?’ I grieved him all over again, but in a good way. I was able to let him go.”
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Davina shared that she has a lot to be thankful to her father for, including some advice that’s been vital to her. She’s about to return to our screens as the host of a major BBC dating show, Stranded on Honeymoon Island, which sees 12 unlucky-in-love singles matched into couples, married and sent off to be stranded in the Philippines. Never one not to get emotionally stuck in, Davina says there were ‘big heart-to-hearts’ with the couples, and says the relationship advice she always falls back on came from her dad.
“Love is made up of four things: friendship, carnal love (you have to fancy them), trust and respect,” she says. “Without one of those four things, love can’t flourish. But the other thing is,” she adds, “is being a team, coming at everything together, united. Even shopping, cleaning, all the mundane rubbish stuff that everybody hates doing. Do it together and it's more fun.”
Davina has also been busy sharing advice of a different kind in her new book, Birthing. “I’ve wanted to write this for 25 years,” she says of the book she’s co-written with midwife Marley Hall. “I loved giving birth. I felt empowered because I knew everything there was to know about it, but sometimes women don’t have all the information they need."
"I hate that women get judged for decisions they make about their own bodies. I don’t care what kind of birth you want; I just want to help you have it. Midwife Marley is a brilliant advocate for women getting what they want and deserve.”
Here’s to every woman getting exactly that.
Read the full interview in Good Housekeeping UK’s October issue, on sale from Thursday 28th August.
Birthing (HQ) by Davina McCall is out on Thursday 11th September. Stranded On Honeymoon Island is coming to BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Wednesday 3rd September at 9pm. Find Davina’s 5-Minute Move-It Challenge in the new issue of Good Housekeeping UK.
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We have 15 copies of Davina’s book Birthing for GH VIP Members to win. To enter, visit ghmembers.co.uk.
