Springwatch star Michaela Strachan has made the surprising admission that the secret to her successful 23-year relationship with partner Nick Chevalier is “not to get married”. The 59-year-old admitted their love affair had begun amid a time of huge turmoil for his family, after his partner died of colon cancer, leaving their kids motherless – and that in itself was turbulent.
“Coming into a relationship with someone that had lost their partner, and three kids who had lost their mum, was a difficult dynamic to begin with,” Michaela explained. “There were no real major challenges, just the feeling of, ‘Whoa, how do we handle all this?’ It needed thought and patience.” She added in her very candid interview with Platinum magazine: “We don’t see the need to get married. It’s an awful lot of expense, isn’t it?”
That’s in spite of Michaela admitting that, back in the early 1990s, she once earned £10,000 in just a few days modelling for Kay’s Catalogue.
Since then, she’s shaped a lucrative career in television and is most famous for presenting shows such as Springwatch alongside co-star Chris Packham.
However, she’s adamant that the financial expense of marriage to Nick, whom she met during a filming session in South Africa, isn’t one she would like to commit to.
Meanwhile, Michaela previously told The Mirror that, far from being inseparable, the pair’s secret to an amicable marriage is not spending long periods in each other’s company.
“We’re apart a lot. We don’t get on each other’s nerves as much as maybe we would if we were together all the time,” she mused.
Michaela constantly travels for her job and can often be seen in Britain, but her home with Nick is on the slopes of the picturesque Table Mountain National Park in Cape Town, South Africa.
The interior of her Mediterranean-style home is almost as stunning as the exterior, boasting quirky pieces of furniture that have even travelled with her all the way from Bristol.
One such piece is a huge wooden farmhouse table complete with “four church pews”, which can seat 14 people.
It looks like Michaela and Nick are in it together for the long haul – but the down-to-earth pair are in no rush to prove their commitment to each other with a wedding ceremony.