You know what they say. Write about what you know. So, here we have Delia Jago, heroine of Fern Britton’s new novel, A Cornish Legacy, and she’s lost everything. Her mother, her father, her career, her marriage. Remind you of anyone? Fern breaks into that familiar face-splitting smile. “Well, yes,” she says. “I’ve been there.”

Her mother, Ruth, died in 2018. “I must admit, I found it difficult writing those scenes in the book. Mum was in her 90s but, no matter how old you are, you’re still a child to somebody.” She fans her face. “Just look at me.” Seven years later, Fern, 67, still wells up at the memory of the loss. Her father, actor Tony Britton, died the next year. “As soon as I heard, I went and told the girls [daughters Grace and Winnie]; they were both living with me then. ‘I’m an orphan,’ I announced and they burst out laughing. It was exactly the tonic I needed.”

As to her career, well, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, she says. She’s twice been sacked, the first occasion when she returned to GMTV’s Top of the Morning having given birth at 37 to her twin sons, Harry and Jack. “The man who told me there was no more work for me was a coward. He’d put somebody else in my position while I was on maternity leave and he didn’t have the guts to give me back my job.”

The second dismissal was from Carlton Television’s After Five. “I was in the grip of post-natal depression. The woman I’d been interviewing was talking with much courage about the fact that she was terminally ill with breast cancer. And I’d cried on air, which was judged inappropriate.”

In 2009, she stepped down from co-presenting This Morning with Phillip Schofield after 10 years. “I always say that he and I had an indefinable chemistry which seemed to work well on screen. One day, when the time feels right, I’ll share with the world what really happened.” They haven’t spoken from that day to this.

Sadly, that is also true of the other Phil in her life, her now ex-husband, TV chef Phil Vickery. “He hasn’t spoken to me for six years now. As soon as my mum died, he stopped talking to me.” But, when all’s said and done, he remains the father of her youngest child. “Winnie adores him. I’m not going to bad-mouth him in front of her; at least, I try very hard not to. I was the child of divorced parents and my mum never bad-mouthed my father.”

Nor is she asking for special sympathy. “Like many people, I’ve been through divorce, so I have an understanding of it. And that made it easier to write about.” For some time now, she’s had this second career. “It’s much harder than sitting in a TV studio for a couple of hours at a time. Writing has become my bread and butter.”

Next year, there will be another Cornish novel, her 12th. She’s reluctant to say much about it, other than that the story came to her fully formed as she was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. The fact she was on the floor was because she’d just finished an exercise regime. Was this in her home gym?

She laughs. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read. There is no home gym. I have weights and dumbbells in my bedroom.”

Almost two years ago, Fern had radical shoulder surgery – a complicated four-hour operation. She’d first hurt her right shoulder when she’d attempted to heft a heavy bag of rubbish into a wheelie bin. “When I finally got to see the NHS surgeon, I told him about the constant pain. The shoulder had become arthritic and he said he was going to do a complete replacement.

“I burst into tears. He was taking me seriously. I then asked him whether I’d still feel pain post-op and he said: ‘Plastic and metal have no nerves.’ And he was right. It was also the trigger for shedding all those pounds.”

Fern embarked on a healthy regime that includes cycling, walking and eating sensibly – low on processed food and sugar, high on protein and veg – which has resulted in her astonishing five-stone weight loss.

Some years back, she ran into trouble for not revealing she’d had a gastric band fitted. Hand on heart, can she now say she hasn’t resorted to fat jabs?

“Absolutely. Honestly. I promise. It’s down to exercise and eating the right food.”

Three times a week, she does a half-hour warm-up using weights before embarking on her next run as part of the Couch to 5k regimen which helps you reach the ultimate goal by adding a bit more mileage each time you set off.

“By the end of nine weeks, you can run for 30 minutes without stopping,” she explains.

She’s not in pain anymore. “And I’m happy. Ask anyone why they’re piling on the pounds and the answer will invariably be because they’re eating away their unhappiness. Before the operation on my shoulder, I was smoking, eating, drinking. I couldn’t put my bra on without help… I was so miserable. Now, I have a very peaceful life and four children I adore.”

Harry, Jack and daughter Grace are from her first marriage to TV executive Clive Jones; she also has a daughter, Winnie, 24 in August, from her marriage to Phil. “These days, if I ever catch sight of my reflection, my genuine reaction is that I look stronger somehow, both externally and in my head. Out of something bad has come something really good, the best gift I’ve ever been given. I’m never going to muck it up.”

Again, despite what you may have read, there is no new man in Fern’s life since she and Phil went their separate ways in 2020 after two decades together. “I got an email the other day from someone who said they’d read I’d got a new boyfriend. Not true.”

Not that she’s ruling it out. “If somebody amazing came along, that could be nice. But I’m not expecting it to happen. Anyway, I spend most of my time at home. I’m not out looking. I describe myself as a silver splitter and a recluse.”

Well, almost. “Winnie is a builder and lives with me because she can’t afford to live anywhere else. So, I see her every day. And Grace lives 15 minutes away; she works as a nurse at Treliske Hospital so she pops by when she can. I also have two lovely girlfriends, near neighbours. We’re very close. But, mostly, I’m on my own at home, writing.”

There are no grandchildren yet. But there are two dogs – or fur babies, as she puts it – in her life. “Grace has a rescue chihuahua called Hulk; he’s adorable, the best boy. Then, 18 months ago, she and her partner got a Staffy Collie cross called Maggie who’s delicious. Both dogs spend a lot of time with me.”

They keep Fern company when she’s tapping out a thousand words a day of her next novel, although she does accept the occasional TV assignment. She’ll soon be seen fronting six hour-long Bristol-set episodes of Inside The Vet’s on ITV from July 5 at 2pm. What about that rumour she was being wooed by This Morning to return to the pastel sofa? “Again, not strictly true. After I’d done Big Brother last year, I was invited by This Morning to do four little travel films. And that was it.”

She sounds content. “I truly am, although nobody’s Pollyanna all day long. There are moments when I’m writing and I feel a bit lonely and I’d love to be able to say to someone: ‘Oh, put the kettle on, would you?’

“But I’ve started going to church again and that’s been fantastic. It’s a collection of normal people. At the end of every church service, one of the wardens, Winston, hands out his incredible homemade cakes.

“He’s a digger driver by day and a cake maker by night. I’m always pleased when I’ve been. It gives me a bit of warmth and a bit of a clear-out, in a way. One of the vicars is a young man with lots of tattoos – he’s also a lifeboat man – who makes us ‘share the peace’. That means shaking hands with the person standing next to you.

“It can be scary but I recommend it to anyone who’s feeling a bit down, a bit lonely. It makes you feel part of a community.”

• A Cornish Legacy by Fern Britton (HarperCollins, £16.99) is published on June 5