Thrown: SARA COX'S GLORIOUS FEELGOOD NOVEL

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Little Shuggie Bain, bless him. He’s so sweet and so heartbreaking trying to look after his mum - it absolutely broke my heart – and I’m really excited about Douglas Stuart’s new book. He’s an absolute sort!’ she says. ‘He’s just a lovely, lovely man and I think we’re a brilliant team. We laugh a lot together, even when the kids are rolling their eyes. That’s a sign of true love, I think.’ A keen runner, horse rider and cyclist, Cox takes active steps to protect her mental health, mainly through exercise.

Her daily Radio 2 teatime show is a consistently joyful listen, where she has established a cosy and inclusive community by putting her listeners front and centre. She’s a gem of a presenter, with natural warmth and humour in spades, and is clearly in her element, never sounding anything less than delighted to be there. Get this: my cleaner has organised them by colour. It’s not great and I’m too polite to say anything. I don’t know why I’m whispering – I don’t think she reads the Observer. It’s a label Cox has always disliked and even now it makes her bristle. ‘I thought it was sexist, even at the time, and I’ve always hated it for that very reason. I’ve railed against it. It diminished us and said we were just trying to be like the boys. But we weren’t trying to be like anything – we were just young women having fun. She recently bought a horse, Nelly, and riding her several times a week has been a godsend. ‘She’s a perfect example of being forced to live in the moment,’ says Cox. ‘Obviously, I can’t be on my phone when there’s a broad expanse of sky ahead of me. I ride her in an area just a few junctions up the M1, when you’re suddenly in the middle of nowhere, and it’s fantastic.’As an argument for the therapeutic powers of pot-throwing, it’s certainly effective. But as the opening salvo from Cox the novelist, it’s distinctly less convincing. Although she supposedly switches between four different points of view, her third-person narration remains in the same brisk voice – sometimes humorous, seldom distinctive. So why not reduce the cast list and add more depth to the characterisation? She’s very much a mashup of Bette Midler and Betty from Coronation Street but my mum is convinced that Sheila is basically her. Which all makes it hard to believe that there was a time, not so long ago, when everything stalled for Cox and she was left wondering where her future lay. On returning to Radio 1 following her first maternity leave, in 2005, and having previously presented both the flagship Breakfast Show and Drivetime before that, she was handed weekend afternoons. I was trying to advertise myself and it was toe-curling. But she was right, because you just never know. I mean, I was always working but I was just doing weekends and I wanted to do more. I really wanted to do telly again as well.’ Asking for help But then I get offered other work that I really enjoy, so I have to work hard to say no to keep that work-life balance going. I got a horse in 2020, which forces me to take time out because I have to go out and ride, can't look at my phone and have to be in the moment. After a 30-year break, to have my own horse again is like some sort of therapy."

Jameela: all she’s ever done is work hard, and try her best. Why won’t life give her the one thing she wants? I have my best friend and soulmate, who's up north, and down here there's a group of five of us. Two of them I met through Radio 1 and the other two through my husband," says Cox. At that point, my youngest child was 10 and I felt like I was making 1,000 sandwiches a day because they all just needed feeding and I had no head space. I was getting up early and trying to get in a 5am chunk of writing." Cox, who lives in north London with her family, had hoped that presenting Drivetime, from 5pm to 7pm, would give her more of a work-life balance. She has three children - Lola (17) from her first marriage, and Isaac (14) and Renee (12) with advertising executive Cyzer.She's been hosting Drivetime since 2019, presents the weekly BBC Two book programme Between The Covers, and is currently hosting the new eight-part series Britain's Top Takeaways, in which the country's best independent takeaways go head to head. It does feel like I’m in a really golden era of my career. I’m blessed at the moment with a great balance.’– Sara Cox Putting herself out there There were years where you could not get me arrested,’ she says, frankly. ‘My agent was amazing because, unless you put yourself in front of them, people do forget that you’re there. So she’d take me for a coffee and a biscuit with some commissioner, like she was trying to auction me off. I felt like these ideas would just bubble up, like they were coming from the characters. It was a bit like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost. The ending came to me in the middle of the night: I was half-dreaming, half-awake, and I thought: “Aaah! That’s what’s going to happen!” Riders and Polo combined fruity frolics and horses and that blew my 15-year-old mind