INGRID TARRANT: I’ve no time for Rolexes… they’re vulgar and customary!

Ingrid Tarrant, 71, is a journalist and television personality best known for shows such as TV Mail, Celebrity Coach Trip and Our Shirley Valentine Summer, writes Peter Robertson.

From 1991 until 2007 she was married to TV and radio star Chris Tarrant, with whom she has two children – including the Radio X DJ Toby Tarrant. She also has two children from a previous marriage, including Heart FM DJ Fia Tarrant.

She lives in a nine-bedroom house in Cobham, Surrey, and has nine chickens, two pigs, a horse, a cat and a goldfish.

What did your parents teach you about money?

My half-French, half-German father Friedrich worked in manganese iron ore and mining, and taught me about stocks and shares. He gave advice like ‘speculate to accumulate’, ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ and ‘don’t expect something for nothing – you work for it’.

My Norwegian mother Arda was a lady of leisure. I was born and raised in Hertfordshire in a very Scandi-Euro way.

On birthdays, my two brothers, my two sisters and I got given £1 by our dad for every year old we were. I have done the same for my children, but with £10 for every year old they are… so I’ve brought inflation into it.

What was your first pay packet?

My first holiday job was when I was 16, which was mundane admin and filing at an office in Borehamwood. It didn’t pay much but was thrilling because I was saving up to buy a nice-looking radio. In those days, I loved listening to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg.

Little did I know that I would one day present a radio show on Magic, and guest present on several other stations.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

Plenty of times. The worst was after my first divorce – my ex-husband Tony was clever and had a wily rottweiler of a solicitor, and I was a pushover.

The fact that I was working and bringing up two children wasn’t really taken into account. He left me homeless with a £33,000 overdraft – it was the biggest debt I’ve had to face.

I made sacrifices like living off vegetables and giving up smoking. I cut overheads as much as possible to live on the bare bones of what I had left from my salary, and did car boot sales. But it turned out to be relatively easy to get over within a year, because I started playing the stock market.

Have you ever been paid silly money?

Yes – thousands of pounds for a day’s work making a TV advert for the Co-op in 2001.

I had to walk around the supermarket with a trolley, picking up things like beer, nuts and melons as if I was buying them for Chris. The one line was: ‘If the Co-op is good enough for Chris Tarrant, it’s good enough for everybody.’

What’s been your best time financially?

The 1990s, when I was a freelance journalist interviewing celebrities and covering events for OK! Magazine.

When I covered the Wild Hogs film premiere for the reality show Deadline, for the first of my three permitted questions to each of the movie’s stars – John Travolta, Ray Liotta and Tim Allen – I cheekily asked for a kiss… and they obliged.

Most expensive thing you bought for fun?

My weaknesses are handbags, shoes, boots, belts, clothes and watches.

I bought a Tag Heuer for more than £1,000 in the 1980s, having fallen in love with it at first sight. I haven’t worn it for years. I have 70 watches, including dirt-cheap ones. I don’t have Rolex watches – they are vulgar and common.

What has been your biggest money mistake?

Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve ever made a money mistake. I’ve never regretted anything I’ve purchased.

I did buy a flat in Sloane Square [in Chelsea] in 2015 for £425,000 that I thought I’d get more use out of, but it didn’t turn out to be a mistake because I made a profit on it when I sold it four years later for £475,000.

The best money decision you’ve made?

From the late 1970s I bought and sold nine properties in ten years, creating a property portfolio. I would buy a dump, do it up, flog it, and invest the profit in the next dump.

I did that with three properties when I was married to Chris, and one day he went to a place I’d just sold, having forgotten we’d moved to a new one!

Do you have a pension?

I do, with a few companies, as well as the state pension, which is one of the good things about getting older. It’s a healthy pot, and I’m basically leaving everything I can to the children.

Advisers tell me: ‘For goodness sake, they’ve got enough. Why don’t you go on world cruises?’ But I’d feel uncomfortable spending money for the sake of it.

Do you own any property?

Yes. I own the Cobham house that I’ve lived in since 2006, which was built in 1914 and has nine bedrooms, five acres, a tennis court and an air raid shelter.

I don’t rattle around in it as I make big noise with friends coming at weekends, and during the week I have TV supper nights with neighbours.

I want to live there for ever. Antonio Banderas lived nearby until recently – I’d hoped that, if I bumped into him, he’d serenade me. I own another property in London, two others in England, two in Norway and one in France.

What would you have done if your television career had not worked out?

I would have gone back to being a fashion designer.

In 1975 I started a fashion business called St Maur – because my family’s full name was Dupre de St Maur. In my first year of trading I had more than a £250,000 turnover. I closed it around 1983 when I joined TV-am, but continued designing one-offs until around 1985.

If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

I’d have base-rate tax for everybody – I think you’ll get so much more revenue

As my Dad said: ‘It takes money to make money.’ And if you take it away as people earn, they are going to find ways of not paying tax – and you’ll get a mass exodus like we’ve got now because the Chancellor is killing enterprise.

I’d abolish inheritance tax and capital gains tax. I wouldn’t keep throwing money at the NHS – I would do it so everybody pays a nominal amount per appointment.

What is your No.1 financial priority?

My four children and four grandchildren and close friends. It’s terribly important to me that if any of my family is ill, I could afford to get them private treatment immediately. Health is vital and I don’t trust the NHS.

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