Winterwatch’s Gillian Burke on life as a single mum amid ‘tough’ cost of living crisis: ‘It hasn’t been the easiest few years’

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Best known for presenting BBC Two's fan-favourite nature series Winterwatch - which returns on 16 January - Gillian Burke admitted that despite a successful TV career, life is far from easy these days.

She said: "The cost of living is tough for me - I run a single income home - I'm not doing too badly but I definitely watch what I spend.

I have to be careful. "I'm at the sharp end of the housing crisis myself. It's almost impossible to find a home that you can rent for a family - holidays lets for example don't help - it's really tough." The 48 year old mum of two admitted that it simply isn't enough for her to just talk about "nature and the environment" anymore. "We don’t live in a system that helps us make better choices - the cost of living crisis is forcing people to make choices between eating and heating their homes.That's what's wrong with the world, it's not right at all." Kenyan-creole Gillian, who now lives in Cornwall with her children, 17 and 15, recently lost both of her parents - her late mum, Enid, the first Black journalist in east Africa, and her mechanic dad, James. "This hasn’t been the easiest few years for our family - I lost both my parents in a short space of time. "They were elderly and it wasn't a surprise but it still hit us all really hard.

I want my kids to see you can be knocked back in life but get back up and keep going." Gillian trained as a biologist at the University of Bristol before working in natural history TV for 20 years.