Carol Kirkwood planning to retire from BBC in two years to travel with husband

BBC weather presenter Carol Kirkwoodhas revealed she intends to retire in a couple of years when she hits 65 - and take off around Europe with her toyboy husband.

The 63-year-old has been a fixture on BBC Breakfast for the past 27 years. But dropping hints she’s not going to make her 30th anniversary of predicting sunshine and showers, Carol confessed that she and husband Steve Randall are planning to head off into the sunset.

“We fell in love with Majorca, which is where we went so I could research my fifth novel, Meet Me at Sunset, about a woman running away from a shattered love affair,” she explained. “Steve and I also plan to escape and travel for some time when we retire, perhaps in a year or two. We’ll either travel in a camper van, or get in the car, cross over to France and just drive.”

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Carol has built up an army of fans over the decades, and her decision to quit when she hits normal retirement age will sadden many viewers.

The TV star said that being older than her husband, a policeman, doesn’t bother her. She told Saga Magazine: “Steve is 50 this year. Other people’s opinions about an age gap don’t matter – I don’t feel he is younger than me.”

The weather expert married Steve at Cliveden House two years ago, with just themselves in attendance. She said that finding him, when she wasn’t looking for love, had been down to pure luck.

"Meeting my husband Steve was fate,” she explained to Saga Magazine. “We were at a function neither of us wanted to go to. It was a Sliding Doors moment – if I hadn’t gone, we would never have met.

"We chatted, he gave me his number, and ages later, we met for coffee. He was only a friend before we became involved. I wasn’t looking for a romance; I was happy being single. After a 25-year marriage, I needed to find myself.”

Carol was married to property developed Jimmy Kirwood for 18 years from 1990 and described their divorce as “devastating” at the time. But since settling down with Steve, she has told how contended she feels. Last year she declared: ”Love is lovelier the second time around. No disrespect to my first husband, but this is better."

She said that Steve proposed on a riverbank near their home in Berkshire. “Although we’d talked about getting married, it still came as a shock,” she admitted. "Our wedding at Cliveden House was the most perfect day. Storm Gerrit was raging outside and we didn’t even notice. It was about us getting married rather than having a big, fancy wedding. We had no guests and wrote our own vows, which was really emotional. When you are older, you know more what you want."

Born in Morar, Inverness-shire to hotelier parents, Carol is one of eight siblings. After graduating from what is now Edinburgh Napier University with a degree in commerce, Carol joined the BBC as a secretary in London.

By 1993 she was working as a freelance presenter and three years later she joined The Weather Channel. When it closed down she underwent training at the Met Office before joining BBC News in 1998. She is now the main weather presenter on BBC Breakfast, remaining in London when the show moved to Salford in 2012.

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