KATE Garraway’s husband Derek Draper sat down for a meal with her Good Morning Britain co-stars, after she was awarded an MBE.
Broadcaster Kate, 56, who has worked tirelessly while caring for Derek, 55, through his battle with long COVID, received the honour from Prince William yesterday.
Former political advisor Derek joined his children Darcey, 17, and Billy, 13, in supporting the family matriarch at a Windsor restaurant.
Although he wasn’t seen in snaps shared to Instagram by Ranvir Singh, featuring Ben Shephard, Susanna Reid, Richard Arnold and Laura Tobin, she made sure to give him a shoutout in her caption.
She wrote: “We got there eventually! A beautiful afternoon with the one and only @kategarraway MBE celebrating her general National Treasure-ness.
“We salute you M’am Garraway! So moving to sit down to a meal with Derek, Billy, Darcy, and your mum and dad – alongside your other family @gmb to show you all the love we have in our hearts for you.
“You gave a wonderful, funny, touching speech where you thanked everyone at the table but didn’t say a word about yourself – typical.
“We thank YOU for always enriching our lives with your whirlwind energy, wit, warmth, and intellect. We are here for all of it, for as long as you need us.. and then some x x x x.”
Kate was recognised for her services to broadcasting, journalism and charity.
Her TV career spans more than three decades, and she’s been a fixture on morning telly with ITV since 2000 when she joined GMTV from Sky.
She is a regular co-host of Good Morning Britain and has presented two National Television Award-winning documentaries about husband Derek’s plight after he contracted Covid in March 2020 and suffered life-threatening complications.
Brave Kate recently announced that she’s working on an untitled third documentary about Derek’s illness and is also releasing a second book, The Strength of Love, later this year.
She was asked by Loose Women panellist Linda Robson if Derek could speak, and responded: “It’s very much a whisper. I don’t think we’re necessarily going to have a conversation, but you get fantastic moments.
“Billy [their son] had a new basketball and was bouncing it, and he said ‘is that new ball?’ He said: ‘It’s nice’.
“Seeing him able to was amazing. Billy was in tears; they were hugging. It’s things like that that really lift you up, and the next day he was really still.”
“I didn’t want to write a book about the low times, I wanted to get to a place where it can be really positive and share some of the things I’ve learned to get through it.”
