Carol Vorderman has revealed how her late mum, Edwina 'Jean' Davies, was the reason she appeared on Countdown after forging her signature. Jean and Carol shared a very close relationship as mother and daughter right up until Jean's death at the age of 89 in 2017.
To remember her mother fondly and celebrate Mother's Day yesterday (March 27), Carol posted some sweet videos and snaps of Jean to her Instagram page. Jean lived with and worked for Carol for years, and was by her daughter's side as she went through the ups and downs of life.
Sharing a treasured photograph of the pair on Jean's last Mother's Day, Carol shed some light on her living situation with her late mum. The 61-year-old wrote: "Mum lived with me from the 1980s, through my marriage, divorce, wherever we moved.
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"In 1982 we'd moved to Leeds together. She wrote my application letter to Countdown and forged my signature and then told me what she'd done."
Carol appeared on Countdown from its 1982 inception until 2008. Over the course of 26 years, she made 4,832 appearances on the show as an arithmetician, and one as a contestant.
In addition to the humorous Countdown anecdote, Carol reflected on her final Mother's Day she spent with her mum in Clifton. Sharing the precious memory with her 200,000 followers, Carol wrote: "Mum had been diagnosed with terminal cancer a week before. So I got a beautiful room in @ivycliftonbrass for all of us to celebrate her.
"We were unbelievably close for all of my life. Mum had lived with me and worked for me full time since the 1980s.
"Whenever I moved she moved with us, when I was married, divorced, whatever. When I had the children Nana was part of our team all day, every day.
"We were a pack of 4. Me mum Katie and Cam.
"24/7 it was always us. She died 2 months after this photo was taken.
"Wishing all of us whose Mums are sadly no longer with us a happy Mother's Day with good memories. 'Remember me and smile'."
Carol's dad had an affair whilst her mum was pregnant with her, so they separated when Carol was just two weeks old. The family, which consisted of Jean, Carol, and her siblings, lived in a tiny unheated flat in Prestatyn, North Wales, with four of them sleeping in one bedroom.
The Pride of Britain Awards host has previously said that, as a result of the poverty she lived in growing up, she has learnt to appreciate what she has now. She has also cited receiving the letter to say she had a place at the University of Cambridge as 'the proudest moment of her life'.
In an article for The Mirror in 2019, Carol wrote: "It’s hard for people to understand now just how momentous that was. I’d been at a comprehensive school and I didn’t know anyone in the whole of North Wales who’d been to Cambridge.
"My head teacher asked why I was applying there and I said, ‘Well, I’m going to be a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force and if I’m going to try to be that, I need the best degree at the best university.’ My college gave three offers that year to girls from Northern state schools and we’ve all ended up with our own Wikipedia pages. How about that?
"When the offer came through, I don’t think my feet touched the floor for about a week. I went in the third year that the college had started taking girls, and I was one of the first 50 women to study engineering there."
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