BBC legend Jan Leeming reveals she thought about taking her life after husband No4 ran off

The ex-newsreader, 80, who has been divorced five times and single for 20 years, hasn’t given up on finding Mr Right.

But she felt like giving up on life after husband No4, pilot Eric Steenson, left her. She then rushed into doomed marriage No5 with head teacher Christopher Russell in 1997.

She said: “I was at my lowest ebb. I’d even contemplated ending it all.

“I was needy, vulnerable. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”

Jan first married in 1961, when she was 19. Her husband, BBC sound engineer John Staple, was much older and the marriage lasted six months.

Soon afterwards Jan emigrated to New Zealand with writer Owen Leeming. They didn’t marry but she adopted his surname. Husband No2 was estate agent Jeremy Gilchrist, who left her for a Swedish girl just eight months after their 1972 nuptials.

Wedding No3 came in 1980, when Jan got hitched to Radio 2 presenter Patrick Lunt.

They had son Jonathan, but five years into their marriage they became so with Red Arrows manager Eric and his wife, Robin, that they all swapped partners.

Eric left Jan seven years after they wed in 1988.

She admitted: “He was a womaniser – but he was the love of my life.”

Christopher left her after two years of marriage.

Jan told Saga Magazine she would like a new man but they react badly when they find out how old she is. She laughed: “They head in the other direction – for the company of a woman 20 years younger.”

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