DX1ST DX1ST 18 Daily Express Thursday, December 19, 2019 Daily Express Thursday, December 19, 2019 19

POLISHED Heading to go ew By Olivia Buxton PRESENTER: Nick on the E has been a constant any nature is a wicked thing. My set of ­presence on TV for the past grandparents were from Belfast. I here please two decades as Sir Alan had a Catholic grandfather and a Sugar’s former right-hand Presbyterian grandmother, so they Santio quam inversp erovite By News Reporter man on The Apprentice and understood about bigotry and I feel mperovi tatur? then as host of Countdown the same way about this whole anti- Am, utempor endipsandis sam doluptur aut ut rerro tectur rae. forH nearly eight years. Semitism wave.” volupta temporempor modia Ita quodis anis doluptae nos di But Nick Hewer is lucky to be here Nick’s Countdown colleague quibus, sequodita sinvernamus. aut officiat modit mil imod que at all after being an “inch away” has also spoken out Aximil magnihitat aut et deriae a cor aut laborrum et from having a stroke. The 75-year-old about the abuse and death threats ulluptatiore dita consendi exerem intecep eritae volupti was working in Africa when he she has experienced since standing dolupienia nobit, sum everatem dolor auda sitentistem fugiateniet ­suddenly lost his vision and was up to Labour. volupid explibus et atium ad mos volende lenimol ­unable to focus. The TV personality and mathema- quatibus sedita nist, culpario est Et velit optatese non pedigenia However, it was only when he tician, who gave birth to a baby girl, eatur? quatur, utatatia doluptia vendit returned to the UK and saw his GP, Maven Aria, on Sunday, has received Bistium qui consequaest, arum nobis sapisciducid quo cus who revealed his life was in danger. vitriolic comments as a result. volore cone nos est, cum etur as asimetur aut hicillabo. “I had the scare when I was in “I’ve seen how Rachel has been doluption num quo beaqui Itatquid experehendit abo. Maio. Sierra Leone while I was working for trolled. It’s absolutely disgusting,” cuptatur? Aborepuda sunt qui Officit plis et que ipiendanime nis Caption in here the charity Street Child,” says Nick. says Nick. “I admire her for standing “I was in my hotel room squinting at up for what she believes in. It’s awful my laptop when my vision went all to think anti-Semitism even exists. I funny. Unbeknown to me, a blood had voted Labour all my life before SIDEKICKS: Nick and The vessel behind my retina had burst. this but not anymore. I can’t have Apprentice’s “But it wasn’t until I flew back to anything to do with them now and Below, In Sierra Leone the UK and I went to see my GP in should step down.” Northamptonshire to have a yellow Nick reveals that Rachel is plan- fever jab for my next trip ning to take three months that I told him that I maternity leave until hadn’t been able to February when they see properly and I will reprise the wasn’t feeling filming of great. He took Countdown. my blood “Everybody pressure and on the it turned out Countdown to be really team has high. He been waiting looked really with bated alarmed and breath,” says said to me, Nick. “I was ‘Good God, one of the first how long has people to find this been going out and she sent on for?’ me some gorgeous “He said I was NEW BABY: Rachel, pictures a few days ­dangerously close to Pasha and their ago and she looked ­having a stroke and he daughter Maven Aria like a very proud Japan “to have a potter about and would have to put me mum. I didn’t know if explore Hiroshima and Kyoto.” on hypertension pills but that I it was going to be a boy or girl, so it should get my eyes checked as well. was a real surprise. “I went straight to Moorfields eye “I am in no doubt that she will be hospital in where it was the best mum and her husband Pasha ­confirmed I was an inch away from (Kovalev) will be a great dad. What a ut before then he plans having a stroke and that instead of a wonderful Christmas it will be and to celebrate the festive blood vessel bursting in the brain, it what a fantastic, but early, Christmas season at his home in had popped behind the retina of my present to have. I was on a NBorthamptonshire with his son and right eye. “I live in the country and they live daughter and his five “They said it had been a near miss in town so I don’t expect we shall get grandchildren. and, if it had gone undetected, it to see the baby until the New Year “On Christmas Eve, Catherine would have gone into the brain. and it might well be when filming and I will go to midnight mass at “I was fortuitous to be in the right starts on Countdown in February. our local church where they have a place at the right time and I’ve been “What a great start to 2020 for carol candlelit service and we’ll taking hypertension tablets since.” them.” have mince pies afterwards. Nick’s mum died aged 82, from “Catherine is cooking goose on heart complications, and his dad was countdown Christmas Day although it will only 96 when he died from catching a just about feed us. ­suspected bug on the hospital wards “What will I be watching on TV after having a nasty fall. ick has signed a two-year on Christmas day? Chernobyl is Nick admits that not only has it contract to continue on not really Christmas fare but I am made him aware of his mortality but Countdown until the end locked on to that at the moment he now lives as principled a life as ofN 2020. and I don’t think I will be watching possible. “I would be flattered if they asked Strictly. Recently, he was one of 24 high- me to do it again. It’s quite arduous “They actually tapped me up for profile figures to write and sign an but it’s not exactly coal mining.” to disaster the last series and I said, ‘No one is open letter saying how he refused to Nick’s TV career didn’t start until stitching me into a yellow satin vote for the Labour Party because of he was 60 when he joined Sir Alan Unlikely TV star Nick Hewer, who considers himself lucky to be shirt.’ The athleticism would kill me allegations of anti-Semitism. Sugar as his right-hand man on The within minutes. It wouldn’t be good “Along with the likes of Joanna Apprentice. for the blood pressure either. Lumley and John le Carré, I signed The pair met in 1983 when Nick alive, on Rachel Riley, romance and roaming the planet “I’m too old and Gloria an open letter saying we must was taken on as a PR by Amstrad Hunniford, who’s nearly 80 nearly ‘encompass Britain’s Jews with (founded by Sir Alan) to did it, but she can be carried unwavering solidarity’ and that we help with the launch of its still watches the show and was my relationship with my children kind of guy. I’m more practical he is currently supporting its Mind around because she is so tiny. I’d have to live in a more tolerant home computers. glued to the all-female final last but it’s OK now,” he insists. minded but don’t get me wrong it The Gap campaign which highlights have to lift a female on top of my society,”­ he From 2005 to 2014, night. “My first marriage suffered as a has crossed my mind to marry her. how 125 million children world- shoulders and I gave up doing that reveals. “I feel Nick was an integral part He remains close friends with Sir result of me always working and so “But we are independent of one wide are being left behind because some time ago.” flattered to be in of the BBC One series Alan and holidayed with him on I try to spend more time at home. another too and I like to travel, she they are not in education. such good com- but he eventually quit his yacht in Croatia this year. “Catherine, in all honesty, has runs a successful business and we A donation of £15, doubled to ●●Street Child is a UK-based pany to have because of Determined to spend more time changed my life. I think she has have a new black labrador that she £30 by UK Aid Match, covers the charity that educates and protects signed this open exhaustion with his partner of 20 years, steadied and steered the ship. I am looks after while I’m away.” school fees, uniform and learning children in war zones and other letter. It’s some- although he Catherine, Nick accepts he saw too not very well organised domes­ Nick has completed epic road materials for one child and money crisis situations. All donations to thing I feel little of his two grown-up children tically and she is amazing. trips through Russia, Mongolia and donated to the appeal before their Mind the Gap appeal before very strongly PARTNERS: Nick and threw himself further into “I’ve never been a romantic per- Sierra Leone to raise money for January 4, 2020, will be doubled January 4 will be doubled by the about. and Catherine work. son. I find it all terribly schmaltzy. charity. by the UK Government. UK Government. For details, see Bigotry of “My divorce (in 1985) did affect I’m not a candlelit dinner-and-roses An ambassador for Street Child, After Christmas, Nick is off to ukaidmatch.org