‘I wouldn’t class myself as datable’ In the wake of her 20-year marriage split, Countdown veteran Susie Dent has been reassessing her life
- Susie Dent says that at age 57 she feels asexual and invisible at the moment
- The English author split from her husband, schoolteacher Paul Atkins last year
- She says that dating is not on her radar at the moment and doesn’t feel pressure
I arrive at the YOU photoshoot to find Susie Dent chatting away to the photographer in German, looking like a glamorous cross between Charlotte Gainsbourg and Alexa Chung, casually dispelling any notion you can’t sound sexy auf Deutsch. As well as being the nation’s favourite etymologist, she’s fluent in German and French. ‘Zhoosh the hair!’ a stylist instructs. ‘How do you spell zhoosh?’ Dent asks the room, all sexy schoolteacher, dangling her glasses. ‘The dictionary has three spellings because nobody knows.’
Given the newly adopted flirty attitude she exudes on television, Dent surprises me by saying, ‘I feel quite asexual at the moment.’ In fact, she goes further, admitting that as she has got older, she feels invisible. ‘I think that comes with age. It’s sort of positive and not so positive. I’m not sexualised at all. There is liberty within that. But there’s also a slight regret at leaving that behind.’
Perhaps some of what we’re talking about lies between the lines. At 57, Dent is single again, having split last year from schoolteacher Paul Atkins, after 20 years of marriage. She seems somewhat raw and emotionally bruised by the experience, side-stepping direct questions. When I ask enthusiastically if she might have found a new freedom in being single, she answers coolly: ‘I didn’t get this whole sense of liberation like, “Right, I’m going to go out and find someone new.” I’m not looking for anyone at all. I’ve always lived in my head, I’ve always liked my own company. So, it kind of feels like a comfortable place to be.’
Susie Dent says that at age 57 (pictured) she feels asexual and invisible at the moment. The English author split from her husband, schoolteacher Paul Atkins last year
Dating, she says, is ‘absolutely not on my radar. If I bumped into somebody in ten years’ time then lovely, but it’s not something I’m looking for.’ She would never use Tinder: ‘I wouldn’t, for a second, think of putting myself on a dating app. I’ve never looked at a Tinder page, even when somebody else is doing it.’ Doesn’t she get all sorts of men sending her random online proposals? ‘No,’ she says, surprised. Friends have tried to set her up, most recently with an Eton housemaster. But none of it interests her. ‘I feel totally invisible,’ she repeats.
‘I feel like I’m out of that sphere at the moment. I just would not class myself as a datable entity… I quite like the fact the pressure is off. I don’t need to prove anything. I don’t really feel like I need someone.’ She stops to consider. ‘I just don’t feel at all like anyone would even consider it… I need to build back my confidence and my sense of me because, right now, I feel that the important thing is my girls. That’s what I’m focused on – to make sure that they are all right.’
Susie says that dating is not on her radar at the moment and doesn’t feel pressure to jump back into that sphere
She’s spoken before about how deeply her own parents’ divorce, when she was 13, affected her, leading her to find a safe space in words. Her eldest daughter Lucy, 22, is at university; Thea is 14. All three are incredibly close. ‘My daughters are my life,’ she says. She has spoken about how motherhood was ‘instinctive and spontaneous’ for her; ‘definitely the best thing I’ve ever experienced, and probably the best thing I’ve done in my life’. She’s not looking to let go of it. ‘When you have kids, you give so much of yourself to them that – rightly, I think – you lose the person you were before. In some ways that’s absolutely lovely and in another way, at the end of raising your kids, you need to revisit it and redefine yourself a bit. That time will come. But I’m certainly not there yet.’
Her latest book – An Emotional Dictionary – is why we’re meeting. Beyond Countdown, Eight Out of Ten Cats, her podcast with Gyles Brandreth (Something Rhymes with Purple) and a secret show she’s been filming a pilot for (‘I can’t share the details’), she’s written 13 books including this latest. I ask her which word in her dictionary best describes how she currently feels and she opts for something German: eilkrankheit, ‘basically “hurry sickness” – just constantly, frantically chasing your own tail and never quite getting the chance to relax. I’m also a bit “betwittered” – that means sort of overcome with pleasing excitement, because I am excited about the book, and I absolutely love the work I do. I have the best gig in the world. And I know it could disappear tomorrow.’
Dent has the classic affliction of all clever people: a brain whirring with ideas that both fuel her and cause her endless anxiety. ‘I have a continuous narrative in my head,’ she says. ‘What my next project is, how I’m going to be received. It’s a lovely thing but also a bit of a curse.’ She says she’s had counselling for her ‘worrying, but less so for the pessimism’.
Susie with friend and countdown co-star Rachel Riley. For 30 years Dent has been popping up on our screens every weekday afternoon, and it’s conferred on her a kind of national treasure status
She’s always been ‘massively self-conscious. Even at school I always assumed people were thinking the worst of how I looked. I also have an incredibly beautiful sister… and I’ve moved from my sister to [Countdown co-host] Rachel!’
Attending an all-girls school – The Marist, a Roman Catholic day school in Ascot, Berkshire – was, says Dent, a blessing for a bookish person. ‘It was quiet. I couldn’t have coped with the chaos of a really big school.’ After becoming the sixth-form librarian, she then studied modern languages at Oxford. Her first term was ‘completely miserable because I didn’t really know anyone’ but then she found the drama department and ‘absolutely loved it. And I really let my hair down.’ It was during her masters – in German at Princeton in the US – that she was scouted for Countdown.
After turning it down several times – ‘It’s not like I wanted to be on telly’ – she found a home there, joining Countdown in 1992 alongside Carol Vorderman and the late Richard Whiteley. ‘He was funny,’ she says. ‘He wore his heart on his sleeve. He could be really grumpy – as any taxi driver in Leeds [where the show was originally filmed] will tell you – but you knew where you were with that grumpiness. He was just very open.’
DENT DEFINED
Wordle or Scrabble?
Wordle – I’m terrible at Scrabble
Tea or coffee?
Both
Podcast or audiobook?
Podcast
Early riser or night owl?
Early riser
Reading or writing?
Writing
Cats or dogs?
Dogs. But I do love my cat. But only my cat
Night out or night in?
I’m going to say night out and I hope that actually changes me
Fiction or nonfiction?
Fiction
For 30 years Dent has been popping up on our screens every weekday afternoon, and it’s conferred on her a kind of national treasure status (although she brushes off the idea when I voice it). She clearly still loves the show, though I also get a sense that she feels pigeonholed by it. ‘People don’t think I have legs because I’m behind the desk all the time,’ she grins. ‘I do sometimes wish I could stand up more because you’re just sitting with a dictionary in a corner. I’ve been sitting in a square box for a very long time.’
She’s survived six Countdown hosts – Whiteley, Des Lynam and Des O’Connor, Jeff Stelling, Nick Hewer and Anne Robinson (‘her work ethic was incredible’). The latest is Colin Murray. ‘He’s so excited to be in the chair,’ she says. He’s started a WhatsApp group with her and Riley where he posts memes that say things like: ‘We’re the best trio since A-ha!’
Despite rumours that things were frosty with Robinson at the helm, Dent hates clichés about women warring at work. Riley is her confidante and friend. They share clothes and go on girlie breaks. ‘Rachel is incredibly loyal and supportive. She’s amazing with words as well as the numbers so she really appreciates that side of me, which is great, but also she looks after me a bit in terms of my worries because she’s the least anxious person I know.’
Before our time together comes to an end, Dent mentions that she has another favourite word from her book: strikhedonia. It’s a blend of strike (to take a new direction) and the Greek for hedonist. ‘It’s the pleasure of saying: “To hell with it!” I can be, for all my worries, quite impulsive.’
When I ask about her plans for the future she says it’s to ‘relax into myself. I just need to get rid of the worries that are omnipresent. I just need to chill,’ she laughs. Then Dent returns to our earlier discussion. ‘I mentioned that sort of invisibility. In some ways, I feel like I’m embracing that. I’m just a whole load of contradictions – but I do think that’s OK.’
- Susie’s book An Emotional Dictionary: Real Words for How You Feel, from Angst to Zwodder is published by John Murray Press, £16.99*
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