Ruth Langsford used to secretly watch her now-husband Eamonn Holmes on the BBC because she fancied him – even though she worked for its rival ITV at the time.
The ‘This Morning’ presenter couldn’t believe it when she heard about the brunch-time show launching with married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan as its hosts in 1988 and she never predicted at the time that she and the Irish journalist, whom she married in 2010, would step into their shoes in 2006 and front the show on Fridays.
Speaking in today’s (03.10.18) episode to mark 30 years since its launch, Ruth recalled: "When ‘This Morning’ started I was working for ITV down in the West Country and I wasn’t on the TV, I was a transmission assistant and so I was intrigued because we had heard all about this new show and I was completely intrigued that they were married because I thought: ‘Oh we haven’t seen a married couple like this.’
"And this fascinated me. And then on our monitors, we used to have one monitor that aired the BBC feed, which I wasn’t supposed to listen to, it was just there.
"But every so often I used to switch over because there was this very handsome Irish man on there. I used to think: ‘Oh he’s a bit of alright.’ And then 30 years later, here I am married to him and on the show."
But Eamonn’s memories of the launch aren’t as fond and loving as he was actually made redundant from his job ‘Open Air’ because of how successful rival ‘This Morning’ was.
He teased: "So what does this show mean to me? It lost me my job! I was made redundant because this show was so successful. We were on a show called ‘Open Air’ and it had the airwaves to itself on daytime TV. Then ‘This Morning’ came along a year later and we lasted another year and then that was it because ‘This Morning’ was so successful. And the thing that this show does and has done all that time, it informs, it educates and it entertains. It’s actually great fun. There is nothing like this on TV."
Ruth Langsford watched now-husband Eamonn Holmes on BBC
