Laura Hamilton – best known for showing house-hunters around dream properties in sunny locations on Channel 4’s A Place In The Sun – says “divorce shouldn’t be seen as a negative thing”. The TV presenter and property expert from Kent, announced her split from her ex-husband and father of their two children, Alex Goward, after 13 years together in 2022.
“If two people can’t make it, [can’t] be together, then it’s the best for everyone,” says the 42-year-old. “I’m a very strong, independent woman and I have been my entire life.
“So, I was like, I don’t need a relationship, I just want to be on my own. And it’s better for everyone that way.”
The TV presenter and property expert who lives in Surrey has been part of the line-up for the show for 12 years – alongside Jasmine Harman, Scarlette Douglas and the late Jonnie Irwin, who died after a battle with lung cancer in February this year.
A Place In The Sun is moving to a new prime time slot at 6pm from January 2 next year. The new series includes the Mediterranean isle of Gozo and historical towns around Lake Garda, Italy.
Through those many years of TV, her marriage breakdown and renovating 28 properties – including her current project in Mallorca – she has a knack for remaining optimistic. “I have always tried to be positive, even when things have gone on in my life that I think, that’s really crap. No one knows what’s around the corner,” she says. “I always try and go, right, you know what? That’s happened and that’s going to make me stronger. Or I’m going to tackle this, I’m going to achieve that.”
In 2018, she stepped in to save her local Post Office and village shop. “I had no idea how to renovate a residential property, I didn’t know how to do a commercial premises. I employed 24 staff and then Covid hit, and it was like, OK, I’ve got this business, how am I going to deal with this? Some people [said] shut it down, and I was like no, I’m not going to shut it down, we’re going to get through this. We’re going to make it even more of an asset in the community,” says Hamilton.
“If there’s ever a negative, you know what, it just makes me stronger and try and figure out another way. Even in difficult times, I’m always a very big believer in ‘things happen for a reason’, even though times when I’m like, that feels really tough.”
This year she started her own podcast, Mile Fly Club, sharing travel tips and stories with guests, including Bradley Walsh.“I do believe whatever you put out, you get back. If you know you want to achieve something, you can make it happen. It might not happen immediately, but you can, you can make things happen,” she says.
“When you work as hard as I have – and I’ve never been given anything from anyone, I’ve got pretty good work ethics because I’ve got that from my parents – I want to instil that into my own children.
She shares son Rocco, 11, and daughter Tahlia, nine, with her ex, and has shared the joys of travel with them since she was young. “My children have travelled with me since they were three weeks old,” Hamilton says, when she competed in the first series of The Jump in 2014 in Austria, three weeks postpartum. “That was kind of crazy, really, being a new mum.
“It was the same with Tahlia, when she was three weeks old [we] travelled to Mallorca.”
Travel is so educational for children, she says. “The kids, they’ve learned so much; the experiences, the cultures, the foods, the sights, the sounds, the language….They love to ski, they’re great in the water. It can be stressful. But I think often, as a parent, you worry too much about what other people think, like if you’re on a plane with a baby.
“When I look back through my photos, I’ve had travel work experiences with my two, where I’ve had literally one on the front in a baby carrier and one on the back.”
“I think in the long run, it will, you know, it pays off.”
Hamilton has been renovating houses since she was 19. “You can make money from renovating property, and I love everything about turning a rundown old wreck and transforming it.”
Her current project in Mallorca is a “massive” project. “Renovating overseas is a very different thing to renovating in the UK. I’m turning a six-bed townhouse into a four-bed townhouse with a plunge pool. It’s going to be a bit of a grand design-esque type transformation. It won’t be the house when I finished with it, it won’t be the house that I bought.
“I just enjoy the process, and I love being involved as much as possible. I mean, I love interior design, and I love dressing houses, I love wallpapering.” Now in her 40s, Hamilton is “just enjoying it for the now”, saying, “When you get into your late 30s, early 40s, you become a bit more comfortable in who you are.
“Age is just a number, and you know, every stage of your life you’re learning and you’re putting in the building blocks to get to where you are.”
A Place in the Sun will return on 2nd January at 6.00 pm on Channel 4.
