She may be a writer and broadcaster in her own right, but Tana Ramsay is probably best known to many for being the wife of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay – with whom she has welcomed (as Giovanna Fletcher put it) ‘many children ranging from six months to 26 years’.
Speaking on Giovanna’s podcast Happy Mum, Happy Baby Tana admitted, ‘I don’t feel like I have six children, I really don’t. It’s just happened and I love it! It’s what I’ve always wanted which is a crazy, busy, happy house. I feel very blessed and busy.
‘[Having a big family] was always how I envisioned my life and luckily Gordon felt the same.’
And whilst being a mum of six - to Megan, 26, Holly and Jack, both 24, Matilda, 22, Oscar, five, and Jesse, ten months – is chaotic, Tana admits that the most hectic time of her life was when she had four children all under the age of three. Frustratingly, that was also the time when Gordon’s career was really starting to take off and he had opened two restaurants and was hoping to sell the family flat in Battersea order to fund another one (yes, really!).
‘I swear by routine,’ Tana revealed. ‘I needed them all in bed by 6.30. The hardest was when they all had chickenpox one after another!
‘You just go with the flow. It was incredibly intense. [Gordon] was chasing his third star, Boiling Point had just come out. I focused on the kids and home, he was focused on work. Sunday was our only day off. He’s wanting to rest and I’m hoping he’ll do things with the baby. It’s not a fairytale moment, it was tough.’
The 50 year old candidly continued, ‘Sometimes I resented his ten minutes to himself on the sofa watching the news because I couldn’t do that. There were times that it felt very hard, but you get over it.’
Always open about their 28-year marriage – Tana met Gordon when she was just 18 years old and the pair tied the knot in 1996 – the author also revealed that there’s some controversy surrounding the birth of their first four children.
‘Gordon wasn’t at the first three births,’ she explained. ‘It is very controversial, but it just felt right. He’d have gone all squeamish and probably have fainted and all the attention would have been on him. So it didn’t bother me.
‘I had my mum. But for the other two he was there. I don’t know what changed. I think it was after what we went through losing Rocky our little boy.’
There’s another reason why Giovanna introduced Tana as ‘mum to many children’. In 2016, Tana and Gordon devastatingly lost their son Rocky, who was stillborn.
Acknowledging that she calls herself Rocky’s mum, Tana said, ‘If I say I have six children then I feel guilty but I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable. He’s my son, but I still haven’t worked it out myself and it’s a really hard one.’
In the episode, Tana went into detail surrounding her loss and how the entire Ramsay family struggled during that time.
She shared, ‘I leant over to speak to Gordon and my waters broke. It went from, "Everything’s going to be fine, we’re just monitoring you" to "This baby is going to be born". That was just the most traumatic thing ever. There are parts of it that I almost can’t remember because I think I’ve blocked it out.
‘I remember them saying, "There’s nothing we can do now, you’re going to have to give birth". And I remember Gordon just looked at me and saying, "I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying in for this".’
Tana continued, ‘That was the hardest thing as well, seeing all the kids deal with it. And how sad they were. It was like it was a whole family pregnancy because they’d been so invested. It was just knowing that I couldn’t do anything to take away their pain.
‘He was just the most perfect little boy. You don’t what to expect but it was like this tiny little doll and we didn’t know that he was a boy. It was really hard and then that feeling of emptiness and then the next morning you’re leaving the hospital without the baby.’
Following the loss of Rocky, Tana went on to welcome sons Oscar and Jesse – the latter of which she admitted looked just like Rocky – leading her to feel that she’s come full circle with her family.
‘[Having babies at home] makes the older children want to come home more. It’s just lovely. And it’s great having all those hands around to help.’
She continued, ‘[Mine and Gordon’s] present to each other last anniversary was we have to go to the theatre once a month and we have to go out three times a month and we’re not allowed to wear trainers. We dress up – it’s proper time together.
‘Those dates are where we always have our best chats. Being older parents, we feel we’re better at doing it all. Awful things that happen, sometimes there is that light or that element that they make you better or more aware, even the most heartbreaking. You have to try and find the positive.
‘I am done [having kids] now, I feel complete!’
Daisy Hall is a News and Entertainment writer on Grazia