Dick Strawbridge has revealed the one thing he was afraid to ask his now wife Angel on their first date 15 years ago.
The TV star, now 65, was 50 when the couple met and had two adult children, both in their 20s, from his first marriage.
He said: ‘When I met Angela (Angel’s real name) I was divorced and separated and had never been on a date. The first date I ever went on was with Angela, after we had been separated for six years.
And I told her it was okay. I didn’t ask her age, because I had always promised my daughter that I would never date anyone younger than her.
“I can’t guess the girls’ ages, so I had no idea. She’s actually a lot older than Charlotte, but I didn’t know that. So I didn’t ask. We just go through life and follow our own path and see what happens.”
Dick Strawbridge, 65, of Escape To The Chateau, revealed the question he was afraid to ask his wife Angel, 46, on their first date 15 years ago (file photo)
The TV star was 50 when the couple met and had two adult children, both in their 20s, from his first marriage.
Dick and Angel, 46, rose to fame in the documentary series Escape To The Chateau, which ran from 2016 to 2022 and followed their renovation of an abandoned 19th-century chateau in rural France.
But speaking to Loose Women presenter Kaye Adams about her… How to be 60 years old, podcast Dick admitted that he tried to end the relationship shortly after they met because he thought the 19-year age difference between them was too much.
He explained: ‘We got to a point very quickly where I said to myself: we have to stop this. This is wonderful, I’m having a lot of fun. But you have to find a young person and do all the things that young people do.
“I wonder if it’s fair. And she actually told me she wanted to be with me.
‘That was one of the biggest decisions of my life. Angela was over 50 and I was 20 years younger. What do we do? It took me less than a second to say, ‘What the hell, we’ll do it.’ And that’s why I live in a castle, with two lovely little kids.’
Dick, who has two grown-up children, James, 40, and Charlotte, 38, from his first marriage, and Arthur, 11, and Dorothy, 10, from his marriage to Angel, also revealed the couple were initially hesitant about Escape to the Chateau making it to the big screen, because they were too positive about everything.
The first series followed Dick and Angel’s quest to restore the abandoned 45-room castle from its uninhabitable state (no one had lived there for the previous 40 years) by installing running water, heating and electricity.
Dick, 65, and Angel, 46, rose to fame in the documentary series Escape to the Chateau, which followed the renovation of an abandoned 19th-century castle in rural France.
Dick and Angel were skeptical that Escape To The Chateau would ever make it to the big screen, because they were too positive about everything.
Dick, who has two grown-up children, James, 40, and Charlotte, 38, from his first marriage, also has Arthur, 11, and Dorothy, 10, from his marriage to Angel (pictured).
Dick also insisted that he and Angel wanted to be completely honest about what they showed on screen and admits he was worried about the 19-year age gap when they first met.
Dick’s first marriage was to Bridget A. Weiner in 1982. They separated in 2010.
‘We always said to people who tried to kiss, ‘Oh, if this goes wrong, is this going to be the end of Dick and Angel’s French dream?’
‘People were trying to make us decide what to do.
“Honestly, you can’t put that on TV because it’s not true, because if we have a problem, we fix it and move on to the next part. That was our mentality.”
The couple now rent out the castle as a wedding and events venue and are currently on a national tour of the UK.