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At home with Gillian Joseph

SCREEN QUEEN:

Gillian Joseph says her home is her haven after a hectic day at Sky News

As a young girl, she was captivated by the likes of Sir Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart on her TV screen – and now, the Sky News anchor is reaching a milestone in the role she has worked so hard for. Here, she sheds light on her life in and out of work

ITN, THE television news organisation, is celebrating its 50th year this Black History Month.

And it’s apt because it has a glorious history of leading the way in diversity in front of the cameras.

Sir Trevor McDonald was the first black news anchor on television. Barbara Blake Hannah, five years before, was an onscreen reporter, and Cy Grant read the news in calypso in the 1960s.

But in 1973, ITN bit the bullet and put a black man (McDonald) in the anchor’s seat of its main news programme.

ICONIC

It took eight years for the BBC to follow suit with not just a black news anchor, but a female one at that. That was in 1981, when Moira Stuart became an iconic symbol for young black girls who wanted to be just like her.

Gillian Joseph was one of those young black girls. Sir Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart were her role models.

I’m constantly working, even when I’m not on air

She achieved her dream and has become one of Britain’s best-known and much-loved news anchors.

And when she finally met Sir Trevor he told her what a fan of hers he was – and then he introduced her to Her Majesty the Queen!

On September 12, Gillian was celebrating 15 years as one of the faces of Sky News Breakfast. So how does a celebrity with a high-powered job like her’s do it with a husband and three children in tow?

She gave us a sneak preview into her hectic work schedule, the domestic lifestyle she maintains and the happy family home that underpins it all.

Current job: Sky TV news presenter (Sky News Breakfast 6am - 10am on Saturdays, Sky News Breakfast 6am - 8.30am on Sundays, as well as Mondays and Fridays on shifting times)

Home: Stanmore, North

London

Family: Husband Tunde, daughters Tiwa and Dara and son Ore

Salary: Six figures

I wake up at 3am. Every time the alarm goes I think, ‘No, this can’t be happening to me again’. I’ve been getting up early for work for a number of years. Despite that, it doesn’t get any easier when that alarm goes. So I get up, sit on the bed and feel sorry for myself for a few minutes before jumping in the shower.

I get the stories we’ll be covering sent to me the night before and I’m briefed on the guests. But you cannot prepare for breaking news you have to react to live on air.

ADRENALINE

I don’t eat breakfast. I don’t eat anything until I come off air at 10am. I feed off my adrenaline on air, but as soon as I come off I’m ravenous. Therein lies my problem. Apparently the body cannot differentiate between fatigue and hunger. The reality is that I’m tired and need to sleep when I come off air, but I don’t recognise that, so I graze all the way home. My body is in a constant state of siege and I never know if I want to sleep or I want to eat.

I’m constantly working, even when I’m not on air. In my job you have to, to keep up with the relentless pace of 24-hour news. Even on holiday. I’m looking at the Sky ticker going across the screen, even now.

Being on air is like your final year exams – it is absolutely exhausting. I don’t think people realise – you’d be surprised at the number of people who think you just turn up and sit there.

I wouldn’t say I’m famous, but I am constantly recognised. I always feel I have to be on my best behaviour and held on a

different level of account. I was very conscious of the rules during lockdown. If a member of the public saw me on Sky News then saw me breaking the rules it would be an issue.

I have a large wardrobe because I am on TV so much.

I have had to add a whole floor in our house for my clothes. I can wear the same outfit twice, but not within the same month. I have a rotation in my mind so I know when it’s okay for an outfit to resurface.

I do my hair myself now –

I have spent too much time in hairdressers.

At home I stress about my children – are they happy? How is my eldest performing in her new job? Did my middle child, who is going to university, get the right grades? And I worry about how missing school for six months has affected my son.

HAVEN

But home is still my haven when I close that front door on the world I start to relax.

I think about things so

much my husband says he hears me sighing in my sleep. I leave the snoring to him – he’s very good at it.

My bedroom is my favourite room. I spend far too much time in it because it’s a fair size.

When we watch a film together, all five of us, it’s sometimes on my bed. It’s like an entertainment room at the moment.

The best thing about my house: it’s not like an English house. It’s has a veranda – like in the Caribbean.