Eamonn Holmes has told how he has been liberated by a hearing aid after going through the ‘manopause’.
The broadcaster, 58, said his health had declined in recent years, adding: ‘Of course there is a manopause. There is a natural decline. And I’m not a superhuman. But I have a positivity, a lust for life. I don’t feel that I want to slow up.’
Holmes, who had a double hip replacement in 2016, discovered he had lost 30 % of his hearing around his 50th birthday, forcing him to wear a hearing aid when presenting Sky News. ‘I was reassured that it was nothing abnormal, but it’s a lot to cope with,’ he said. ‘No one warns you that your hearing is going to go down from 50. Learning a third of your hearing has gone is not the best birthday present.’
The Ulsterman, who hosts ITV’s This Morning with wife Ruth Langsford, gets ‘frustrated’ if he doesn’t have a hearing aid on, saying he is ‘liberated’ by it. The father of four, who doesn’t feel ‘any older than 25’, also told The Daily Telegraph he is now compiling a bucket list, including trips to the Rio carnival and the Northern Lights, after being ‘shocked’ by the recent deaths of stars like Dale Winton and Ray Wilkins, around the age of 60.
Holmes, who will receive an OBE for services to broadcasting on June 1, added: ‘My own father died at 64, of a heart attack. It puts you in a bit of a hurry to do things.’