Jonathan Dimbleby: Why I left my wife of 35 years to be with my dying lover

By NIALL FIRTH

Last updated at 07:39 21 April 2008

Radio 4 presenter Jonathan Dimbleby left his wife of 35 years to spend the final few weeks with his dying lover, he revealed today.

In a moving extract from his latest book, the 'Any Questions?' host has spoken about the heart-breaking decision which tore his marriage apart.

Happily married with two adult children, in May 2003 Dimbleby agreed to interview beautiful opera singer Susan Chilcott.

Within weeks they were having an affair.

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Jonathan Dimbleby with his ex-wife Bel Mooney who he left to be with his lover Susan Chilcott

In an extract from his new travel book published in the Sunday Times yesterday, he revealed that just days after the affair had begun Chilcott discovered a lump in her breast.

After having previously been given the all clear, this time there was to be no reprieve.

Dimbleby's lover Susan Chilcott was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after their affair had started

A doctor told her that the cancer had spread to her liver and that she only had a short time to live.

It was then that Dimbleby made the decision that was to send him into years of depression and that was to wreck his happy marriage with the writer Bel Mooney.

Dimbleby decided that all he could do was move in with Chilcott and her four-year-old son and be at her side for however long she had left.

He said: "I still do not adequately understand the intensity of passion and pity that animated my decision; only that I felt I had to follow my heart and what seemed to be my duty."

After leaving the family home to the distress and anger of his wife and two children, Dimbleby took it upon himself to care for Sue throughout her final months.

"It felt like an unstoppable force," he says. "I knew what I was doing but I didn't know what the outcome would be. It was odd, but I didn't want to be away from Bel either ? I felt absolutely torn.

"But I was entranced; and then of course we didn't know how long she had ? it might have been a few weeks or months or it might have been a few years. It was a very powerful, overwhelming experience and also a kind of test."

Chilcott herself pleaded with him not to throw his life away for her.

"She quite fiercely said to me, 'You must not throw your life away on this, I can manage, I can cope', but I couldn't do that," he said.

Three months later, in September 2003, Chilcott died peacefully in his arms.

The damage caused by his decision was irreparable, and Bel Mooney moved out of their home shortly afterwards.

The following year Dimbleby met his current wife Jessica Ray, who helped him to deal with the 'double grief' of losing both his girlfriend and his wife.

The couple now have a baby daughter, Daisy, and Dimbleby claims his recovery has been "miraculous".

"I never thought I would find happiness again," he said.