I’m always being asked why I’m so happy – now I want to share my secrets after death of my mum, says TV’s Gabby Roslin
GABY ROSLIN is no stranger to people asking her, “Why are you so happy?”
You only have to glance at the TV and radio host’s Instagram to see her life is sprinkled with colour, silliness and laughter.
The presenter tells Sun Health that she has been joyful since childhood, with her school reports describing how she talked and giggled in class non-stop.
Gaby was likened to Pollyanna, a character in the classic children’s novel of the same name, whose overwhelming optimism sickened those around her.
And during her 30-year career, which has spanned national TV and radio networks, she has sometimes felt obliged to apologise for her natural sunny demeanour.
Gaby, 59, reveals: “All the time everybody used to say, ‘Oh, you’re always so happy’. And I always used to say, ‘Yes, sorry’.”
But those apologies stopped shortly after her mum, Jackie, died of smoking-related lung cancer in 1997, aged 62.
Gaby, in her early thirties at the time, says: “When my mum died, I said, ‘You know what? I’m never apologising about being happy again, because life is so precious’.
Wear bright colours
“Mum died of lung cancer the day that my dad Clive, 89, got the all-clear from bowel cancer. It was a harrowing time.”
Gaby reveals one of the biggest lessons she learned during that period, between many daily hospital visits and work, was the importance of self-care.
But most of all, she says: “We don’t know when it’s going to end and I just want to make the most of every moment.
“But I also want other people to feel that as well, I really do.”
It led Gaby to write her new book Spread The Joy to help people see the good in every day.
The mum-of-two, who has been married to publisher David Osmon for ten years, says she has always wanted to make people smile.
And, given her job, it surprises people to learn that she is chronically shy. “I talk quite a lot about shyness,” she says.
“I think it’s the sort of issue that nobody talks about. It’s really bizarre. And that is all to do with mental health.”
Hardships
GABY’S book does exactly what it says on the tin — and is as self-help as they come.
But regardless of whether you love or loathe the genre, it is not short on tips and tricks to put a smile on your face.
“Trust me,” Gaby repeatedly writes, as she encourages you to wear bright colours, watch a squirrel in the park and jump in puddles.
She says: “I want people to know that I’m not taking them for a ride. These are things that I have really done and really do, and I know they can help.”
Underpinning all of Gaby’s joy-inducing hacks is the need to tap into your inner child — the little you who has forgotten how to have fun, be curious and let go of being judged by others.
It might seem like the book does not belong in the hands of a person facing hardship or feeling miserable — but that is exactly who Gaby has in mind.
Reflecting on the “horrific” life events that have forced her to feel grateful, she says: “Everybody has their own story of pain.
“Obviously I lost my mum very young, before I had kids or anything. Just two years after that, I lost my granny, who I was so close to.”
And it is not just family members.
Gaby shares her sorrow at losing “far too many friends when they were far too young” — among them The Sun’s columnist Dame Deborah James, who died of bowel cancer in June last year and shared Gaby’s love for life.
She says: “It’s sort of a reminder to go, ‘Hold on, stop, you are waking up. You are seeing the sunrise, you are feeling the rain on your face’. I remember the day after Mum died, a friend of mine saying, ‘Oh my God, Jackie can’t see the sunrise’, and I remember looking out the window and saying, ‘I can’.
“We need reminding of that every so often.”
Dealing with grief
NOT long after her mum’s death, Gaby took up the offer to present the BBC One game show Whatever You Want, which gave contestants the chance to live out their biggest dreams.
The primetime show, which ran from 1997 until 2000, was perfect for her.
She says: “Women hadn’t really done Saturday-night shows — only Cilla Black at that stage with Blind Date.
“I remember my mum seeing that show being talked about in the Press before she died and she said, ‘Oh look what I’ve read in the paper. It says that they’re doing a wish fulfilment show.
“‘That’s the show you should be doing — you’re always trying to make people’s dreams come true’.
“Bizarrely, they then came to me and asked me to do the show, and it was extraordinary.
“I thought, ‘Of course I’m going to do the show because I am alive and OK to do so’.
“But that doesn’t mean that the pain wasn’t there.”
Gaby felt fresh grief after comedian and TV host Paul O’Grady died of a sudden cardiac arrest in March, aged 67.
“There’s no secret that he and I were very close friends,” she says.
“Recently, I suddenly thought, ‘I must ask Paul’ — and I can’t.
“But it didn’t make me sad. I was pleased I’d thought of him.
“The most important thing that I can tell anybody about grief is that there are no rules.
“Nobody can say you shouldn’t be smiling today.
“There are moments where you wake up and it’s not the first thing you thought about.
“And then there are moments where you think, ‘Will I ever stop thinking about it?’.
“But it never gets better. It gets easier, because your life is different now.”
How to find joy
THERE’S no beating around the bush — life at the moment can be pretty bleak.
Gaby says: “With the pandemic, post-pandemic, everything that’s going on in the world and the cost-of-living crisis, we need to be reminded of the little things.”
Here are a few of her tips . . .
SMILE: “The second you wake up, before you turn over and look at your phone, put a smile on your face,” Gaby says.
“It makes the brain think that you are in a good space.
“You feel better and it’s a wonderful way to start the day.”
JUMP: Wherever you are, get up and jump now.
Gaby writes in her book: “I know that your blood is now flowing a lot faster through your body — you’re probably feeling a little more buzzy.
“So many people doubt that it will work.
“They think that jumping is stupid and silly. Jumping is one of the most joyful things in the world.”
TALK: “We bottle emotions up and are taught the stiff upper lip and all that rubbish,” Gaby says.
“It’s really important to feel those emotions. Talking is important, but so is listening.
“People hear things but they don’t listen.”
- Spread The Joy by Gaby Roslin (HQ, HarperCollins, £18.99) is out on Thursday in hardback, ebook and audiobook.