Jan Leeming says the fourth of her five husbands was the love of her life – despite him being a womaniser.
The former BBC newsreader was so smitten with dashing pilot Eric Steenson that she considered “ending it all” when their marriage ended in 1995.
Instead she rushed into a disastrous final marriage to headteacher Christopher Russell just two years later.
Jan, now 80, says: “I was at my lowest ebb when we met. I’d even contemplated ending it all. I was needy, vulnerable. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
They split in 2001 and she has been mostly single ever since.
Born Janet Atkins, she was just 19 when she got wed for the first time, to BBC sound engineer John Staple in 1961.
She had been desperate to leave home but John was much older than her and the marriage lasted just six months.
She then moved to New Zealand with writer Owen Leeming, her BBC mentor. She did not marry him, and the relationship did not last, but she took his name.
Her second wedding was to estate agent Jeremy Gilchrist in 1972, and Jan was very happy in their marriage – until he left her for a Swedish woman just eight months down the line.
She says: “If a man has a womanising streak, you can’t pin him down.”
Husband number three was BBC Radio 2 presenter Patrick Lunt, who she married in 1980 and who is the father of her son Jonathan.
But five years into their marriage the couple became friendly with former Red Arrows manager Eric Steenson and his wife Robin – so friendly, in fact, that the two couples swapped partners.
Jan was married Eric in 1988 but seven years later he left her. She tells Saga magazine: “He was a womaniser, too. But he was the love of my life.”
A couple of years ago she revealed that her final marriage to headteacher Christopher had left her broke, after she paid off all his debts and put a “great big lump sum” into their Kent cottage.
She says: “When he left me, I had to fight for my very existence.”
But despite all the heartache Jan, who recently celebrated her milestone 80th birthday with her son in Australia, is still keen for a new relationship.
Glamorous Jan says: “What I wouldn’t give to have someone to take me to the theatre, to go on holiday with, to hold my hand. But where would I find him?”
She says her age-defying looks do not help.
She adds: “I know I look younger than I am, which is very nice – but it can be a disadvantage.
“When male contemporaries find out my age, they head in the other direction – for a woman 20 years younger.”
She would also love a new TV challenge, after taking part in I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2006 and The Real Marigold Hotel six years ago.
She adds: “My dearest wish would be to get involved in another TV project and meet a whole circle of new people.”
The March edition of Saga magazine is on sale now .
