‘A caesarean saved my life’
Kirstie Allsopp is in mourning. As her housekeeper unpacks an Ocado delivery and her border terrier, Foxy, snuffles at her feet – ‘she’s always hungry these days’ – the immaculate TV presenter, property guru and homeware designer, is poised at the expansive kitchen table of her beautiful Notting Hill home, talking about Downton.
‘Lady Sybil’s death was even worse than when Nigel fell off the roof in The Archers,’ she says with a healthy flicker of faux melodrama. ‘I’m a great admirer of Julian Fellowes, but I think he has made a mistake. Everyone is going to have the shadow of that grief hanging over them forever now – we can no longer laugh at Maggie Smith’s jokes with the same abandon.’
Put the joking aside, however, and it’s clear that Sybil’s death, in childbirth, really did touch a nerve in the 41-year-old Location, Location, Location presenter. Both of her sons were delivered by Caesarean and she even Tweeted during the Downton episode that ‘a C-section saved my life’.
‘Natural birth advocates make out that birth shouldn’t be hospitalised,’ she says. ‘But you had a 50 per cent chance of dying in childbirth in 1902 and that can now be avoided in developed countries. One in four deliveries ends in a C-section, but thank God it’s a possibility.
‘I find it profoundly troubling that you can go to pre-birth classes, which say that pain relief is bad for the baby and that if you have a C-section you’re not going to bond with the child very well. You are told that if you are brave enough to battle through you can have this amazing childbirth, which is the best thing for your baby.
‘But if things don’t happen like they’re supposed to, it puts pressure on relationships and women feel as if they’ve failed. It’s incredibly important to have choice and feel in control, but childbirth can be life-threatening, so we have to find a middle ground.’
Neither of Allsopp’s pregnancies was easy. She felt ‘profoundly sick’ during both, and her first son, Bay Atlas, six, was delivered by emergency Caesarean in July 2006, when he was two weeks overdue. ‘Everyone was hugely relieved,’ she says. ‘There was this awful silence in the room, and then someone went “Blimey!” He weighed 11lb 11oz!’
The modern house – built in the hole where a Second World War German bomb fell – she shares with her property developer partner Ben Andersen, their two sons and Foxy – ‘the only other girl’ – is an appealing mix of designer glamour, antique collectables and, well, ‘homemade home’. It is also reassuringly lived-in. ‘
I pulled my bed out the other day,’ she confesses, ‘and, horror upon horror horror, mouse poo! We’ve had terrible problems with mouse poo in this house because there’s been building work on either side of us and they tend to run away from all the chaos.’
Allsopp is magnetic company: ebullient, animated – and splendidly opinionated. From C-sections, via mouse poo, we move on to breastfeeding. ‘The other thing you get shot down in flames for talking about is breastfeeding, but we need to be very straightforward about it. The food you make yourself is better for your baby, but it doesn’t work for everybody.’
What seems to concern Allsopp the most is how much pressure there is on new mothers to do it. ‘A friend of mine has had a double mastectomy, but her health visitor asked how the breastfeeding was going and told her she may still be able to get something out. “If I can get milk out of my nonexistent bosoms,” my friend replied, “I have a lot more to worry about than whether my child is being breastfed”.’
‘I have spoken to doctors who will, when they’re honest, say that the remorseless promotion of this isn’t necessarily the right thing,’ she adds. ‘We should be saying “whatever works for you”. With so much focus on breastfeeding and so much focus on how you have the baby, postnatal depression is often forgotten, too. And yet one in 10 people gets it and only one in 10 of them seeks treatment – and it is staggeringly treatable.
‘I do get very cross because every time I hear someone lecturing about breast-feeding, I think what about the person suffering from postnatal depression, whose relationship with her partner, her children and her place wof work could be totally destroyed. There’s a great deal of fear about it. I think some people worry that if you have postnatal depression, they will take your baby away from you.’
Opinionated. Lucid. And really rather charming. Shouldn’t Ms Allsopp turn her talents to politics? Indeed, as the eldest daughter of a Lord (Lord Hindlip, former chairman of Christie’s) many might assume that privately educated (St Clotilde’s and Bedales) Allsopp is a blue-blooded Tory. But apparently not.
‘I don’t do anything without a view to doing it well and to succeed in politics you have to tow a party line, which I don’t think I could. I look around and see masses of hugely intelligent MPs who are not party animals and therefore not in the Cabinet. I wouldn’t go into politics without wanting to be a minister.’
But wouldn’t being an MP satisfy her bossy side?
‘I’m not bossy,’ she protests. ‘I suppose I’m just clear about what I feel is unfair or important. I’m not the number one breadwinner in my house. I don’t control where or how we live.’
But she certainly knows how to put her foot down. ‘I felt really strongly, for example, about what Andrew Mitchell [the Tory Chief Whip who resigned after allegedly calling a policeman a ‘pleb’] did. Shortly afterwards, my elder son threw a wobbly and had a massive fight with his brother in public, and I frogmarched him out and said, “Do you know there is this man called Andrew Mitchell and he has probably ruined his career by losing his temper like you did and you are going to learn that now, aged six.”
‘Andrew Mitchell should have stood outside his house right away and said “I am profoundly sorry for my disgraceful lack of control. The police officer concerned and his wife are going to have dinner with me in the Houses of Parliament next week and I will do 50 hours of community service working with young people who have rage-control issues. I’ve let down my family, my party and everyone who knows me, and I’m thoroughly ashamed.” It should have been a proper, nose-to-the-floor apology.’
As the housekeeper begins to busy around us, Allsopp leads me upstairs to a sitting room on the second floor. It has a busy, lived-in feel and there are clothing and fabric samples on the coffee table and desk (incidentally, Downton’s Lord Grantham has the same one). She assembles herself elegantly on the floor.
There’s nothing precious about Allsopp. She is hands-on and practical, with a penchant for the vintage and the handmade (as her Channel 4 series Kirstie’s Handmade Britain and Kirstie’s Vintage Home testify). She also has beautiful new collections of bed linen, children’s bedding and kitchen textiles. Which is not to say that she doesn’t have help around the house.
'I think women in the public eye who don't admit how much help they have are doing other women a massive disservice. You cannot have glossy hair, good skin, a fantastic wardrobe, happy, healthy, settled children and be going off to Manchester to do a film shoot every other week, without people backing you up. I’ve had the same people working for me since I got together with Ben and they are totally in charge of me. I am the most bossedaround woman – but my children know they are never picked up from school by someone who doesn’t absolutely think the sun shines out of their little bottoms.’
So there’s the nanny, Heather. And the housekeeper. And the PA, of course. But does she know what brand of hoover she has? ‘Of course, it’s a Henry,’ she says. ‘I know every appliance in my house and I know how every appliance works.
‘I also put my children to bed and I do breakfast in the morning. I’m not one of those people who has two or three nannies and never lifts a finger. That would be horrific to me.
‘But you can’t have it all.’
Not that she’s doing badly. Location, Location, Location remains infectious, hugely popular viewing. She has dozens of other projects, not least her new home living collection, on the go. She has a happy family. And a very cute dog. She even gets to work with Phil Spencer.
Ah yes, Phil Spencer. I almost forgot to ask about her business partner, long-time co-presenter and on-screen ‘husband’. Their on-screen chemistry is extraordinary, so has there ever been even the faintest fluttering of romance between them?
‘No. I would never have married Phil and he would never have married me. I am certainly less Phil’s type. Phil’s wife is nearly taller than him; a blonde, Australian yoga instructor, Elle Macpherson meets Claire Danes.’
Oh well. Perhaps you really can’t have it all.
For information on Kirstie Allsopp’s new bed linen designs, her first children’s bedding collection and kitchen textiles range, visit www.kirstieallsopp.co.uk or for stockists: www.ashleywildegroup.com
If Allsopp were Prime Minister for the day, litter would be at the top of her agenda. Only last month, the Keep Britain Tidy ambassador noticed the ‘appalling’ state of the pavement outside her local supermarket and started a Twitter campaign. ‘All shops big and small should make an effort about the bit of pavement outside their stores’, she posted.
‘I feel so strongly about it. It’s the first way in which most people break the law,’ she says.
‘We all want to keep taxes down, but last year we spent nearly a billion pounds clearing the streets of litter.’ And no one is safe from her ire.
‘A friend spat her chewing gum on the pavement the other day and I went berserk,’ she confesses. ‘I couldn’t understand why anyone would do that.’
Earlier this year, two 15-year-old girls directed a string of aggressive and bullying taunts at Kirstie Allsopp via the online messaging site Twitter. Allsopp described the girls as ‘trolls’, users who deliberately write malicious messages on social networking sites. She was horrified by their vile tweets. ‘If you look at those girls’ Twitter profile pictures, they look really pretty, with nice hair and make-up and that’s what I found so upsetting.
‘They are girls with a mum and dad and all the privileges in the world. There are things that are completely unacceptable to say.’
She named and shamed the girls, and told fans to get in touch if they recognised their names. Both later deleted their messages.
‘Lady Sybil’s death was even worse than when Nigel fell off the roof in The Archers,’ she says with a healthy flicker of faux melodrama. ‘I’m a great admirer of Julian Fellowes, but I think he has made a mistake. Everyone is going to have the shadow of that grief hanging over them forever now – we can no longer laugh at Maggie Smith’s jokes with the same abandon.’
Put the joking aside, however, and it’s clear that Sybil’s death, in childbirth, really did touch a nerve in the 41-year-old Location, Location, Location presenter. Both of her sons were delivered by Caesarean and she even Tweeted during the Downton episode that ‘a C-section saved my life’.
‘Natural birth advocates make out that birth shouldn’t be hospitalised,’ she says. ‘But you had a 50 per cent chance of dying in childbirth in 1902 and that can now be avoided in developed countries. One in four deliveries ends in a C-section, but thank God it’s a possibility.
‘I find it profoundly troubling that you can go to pre-birth classes, which say that pain relief is bad for the baby and that if you have a C-section you’re not going to bond with the child very well. You are told that if you are brave enough to battle through you can have this amazing childbirth, which is the best thing for your baby.
‘But if things don’t happen like they’re supposed to, it puts pressure on relationships and women feel as if they’ve failed. It’s incredibly important to have choice and feel in control, but childbirth can be life-threatening, so we have to find a middle ground.’
Neither of Allsopp’s pregnancies was easy. She felt ‘profoundly sick’ during both, and her first son, Bay Atlas, six, was delivered by emergency Caesarean in July 2006, when he was two weeks overdue. ‘Everyone was hugely relieved,’ she says. ‘There was this awful silence in the room, and then someone went “Blimey!” He weighed 11lb 11oz!’
The modern house – built in the hole where a Second World War German bomb fell – she shares with her property developer partner Ben Andersen, their two sons and Foxy – ‘the only other girl’ – is an appealing mix of designer glamour, antique collectables and, well, ‘homemade home’. It is also reassuringly lived-in. ‘
I pulled my bed out the other day,’ she confesses, ‘and, horror upon horror horror, mouse poo! We’ve had terrible problems with mouse poo in this house because there’s been building work on either side of us and they tend to run away from all the chaos.’
Allsopp is magnetic company: ebullient, animated – and splendidly opinionated. From C-sections, via mouse poo, we move on to breastfeeding. ‘The other thing you get shot down in flames for talking about is breastfeeding, but we need to be very straightforward about it. The food you make yourself is better for your baby, but it doesn’t work for everybody.’
What seems to concern Allsopp the most is how much pressure there is on new mothers to do it. ‘A friend of mine has had a double mastectomy, but her health visitor asked how the breastfeeding was going and told her she may still be able to get something out. “If I can get milk out of my nonexistent bosoms,” my friend replied, “I have a lot more to worry about than whether my child is being breastfed”.’
‘I have spoken to doctors who will, when they’re honest, say that the remorseless promotion of this isn’t necessarily the right thing,’ she adds. ‘We should be saying “whatever works for you”. With so much focus on breastfeeding and so much focus on how you have the baby, postnatal depression is often forgotten, too. And yet one in 10 people gets it and only one in 10 of them seeks treatment – and it is staggeringly treatable.
‘I do get very cross because every time I hear someone lecturing about breast-feeding, I think what about the person suffering from postnatal depression, whose relationship with her partner, her children and her place wof work could be totally destroyed. There’s a great deal of fear about it. I think some people worry that if you have postnatal depression, they will take your baby away from you.’
Opinionated. Lucid. And really rather charming. Shouldn’t Ms Allsopp turn her talents to politics? Indeed, as the eldest daughter of a Lord (Lord Hindlip, former chairman of Christie’s) many might assume that privately educated (St Clotilde’s and Bedales) Allsopp is a blue-blooded Tory. But apparently not.
‘I don’t do anything without a view to doing it well and to succeed in politics you have to tow a party line, which I don’t think I could. I look around and see masses of hugely intelligent MPs who are not party animals and therefore not in the Cabinet. I wouldn’t go into politics without wanting to be a minister.’
But wouldn’t being an MP satisfy her bossy side?
‘I’m not bossy,’ she protests. ‘I suppose I’m just clear about what I feel is unfair or important. I’m not the number one breadwinner in my house. I don’t control where or how we live.’
But she certainly knows how to put her foot down. ‘I felt really strongly, for example, about what Andrew Mitchell [the Tory Chief Whip who resigned after allegedly calling a policeman a ‘pleb’] did. Shortly afterwards, my elder son threw a wobbly and had a massive fight with his brother in public, and I frogmarched him out and said, “Do you know there is this man called Andrew Mitchell and he has probably ruined his career by losing his temper like you did and you are going to learn that now, aged six.”
‘Andrew Mitchell should have stood outside his house right away and said “I am profoundly sorry for my disgraceful lack of control. The police officer concerned and his wife are going to have dinner with me in the Houses of Parliament next week and I will do 50 hours of community service working with young people who have rage-control issues. I’ve let down my family, my party and everyone who knows me, and I’m thoroughly ashamed.” It should have been a proper, nose-to-the-floor apology.’
As the housekeeper begins to busy around us, Allsopp leads me upstairs to a sitting room on the second floor. It has a busy, lived-in feel and there are clothing and fabric samples on the coffee table and desk (incidentally, Downton’s Lord Grantham has the same one). She assembles herself elegantly on the floor.
There’s nothing precious about Allsopp. She is hands-on and practical, with a penchant for the vintage and the handmade (as her Channel 4 series Kirstie’s Handmade Britain and Kirstie’s Vintage Home testify). She also has beautiful new collections of bed linen, children’s bedding and kitchen textiles. Which is not to say that she doesn’t have help around the house.
'I think women in the public eye who don't admit how much help they have are doing other women a massive disservice. You cannot have glossy hair, good skin, a fantastic wardrobe, happy, healthy, settled children and be going off to Manchester to do a film shoot every other week, without people backing you up. I’ve had the same people working for me since I got together with Ben and they are totally in charge of me. I am the most bossedaround woman – but my children know they are never picked up from school by someone who doesn’t absolutely think the sun shines out of their little bottoms.’
So there’s the nanny, Heather. And the housekeeper. And the PA, of course. But does she know what brand of hoover she has? ‘Of course, it’s a Henry,’ she says. ‘I know every appliance in my house and I know how every appliance works.
‘I also put my children to bed and I do breakfast in the morning. I’m not one of those people who has two or three nannies and never lifts a finger. That would be horrific to me.
‘But you can’t have it all.’
Not that she’s doing badly. Location, Location, Location remains infectious, hugely popular viewing. She has dozens of other projects, not least her new home living collection, on the go. She has a happy family. And a very cute dog. She even gets to work with Phil Spencer.
Ah yes, Phil Spencer. I almost forgot to ask about her business partner, long-time co-presenter and on-screen ‘husband’. Their on-screen chemistry is extraordinary, so has there ever been even the faintest fluttering of romance between them?
‘No. I would never have married Phil and he would never have married me. I am certainly less Phil’s type. Phil’s wife is nearly taller than him; a blonde, Australian yoga instructor, Elle Macpherson meets Claire Danes.’
Oh well. Perhaps you really can’t have it all.
For information on Kirstie Allsopp’s new bed linen designs, her first children’s bedding collection and kitchen textiles range, visit www.kirstieallsopp.co.uk or for stockists: www.ashleywildegroup.com
My war on litter
If Allsopp were Prime Minister for the day, litter would be at the top of her agenda. Only last month, the Keep Britain Tidy ambassador noticed the ‘appalling’ state of the pavement outside her local supermarket and started a Twitter campaign. ‘All shops big and small should make an effort about the bit of pavement outside their stores’, she posted.
‘I feel so strongly about it. It’s the first way in which most people break the law,’ she says.
‘We all want to keep taxes down, but last year we spent nearly a billion pounds clearing the streets of litter.’ And no one is safe from her ire.
‘A friend spat her chewing gum on the pavement the other day and I went berserk,’ she confesses. ‘I couldn’t understand why anyone would do that.’
Taking on the Twitter trolls
Earlier this year, two 15-year-old girls directed a string of aggressive and bullying taunts at Kirstie Allsopp via the online messaging site Twitter. Allsopp described the girls as ‘trolls’, users who deliberately write malicious messages on social networking sites. She was horrified by their vile tweets. ‘If you look at those girls’ Twitter profile pictures, they look really pretty, with nice hair and make-up and that’s what I found so upsetting.
‘They are girls with a mum and dad and all the privileges in the world. There are things that are completely unacceptable to say.’
She named and shamed the girls, and told fans to get in touch if they recognised their names. Both later deleted their messages.