Kate Garraway couldn't speak for an hour after Derek Draper documentary

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Kate Garraway has said she was left speechless for an hour after watching her documentary about the last year of her late husband Derek Draper’s life.

The Good Morning Britain presenter’s husband died in January after his lengthy battle with COVID. Garraway had already made two programmes about his health struggles, and shared his final chapter in Derek’s Story, which aired on ITV this week.

Appearing on This Morning, the TV star opened up about how emotional it was watching the programme.

What, how and why?

She told hosts Ben Shephard – her former Good Morning Britain colleague – and Cat Deeley: “I couldn’t really speak for about an hour afterwards actually, and that was the sort of human reaction… I couldn’t really speak, I was overwhelmed, it was raw.”

Draper first fell ill with the coronavirus in March 2020 and spent more than a year in hospital, needing round-the-clock care when he got home.

Garraway said when she watched the film – which highlights the challenges faced by those living with serious illness and disability and those who care for them – one of the things that jumped out at her was the frustration of seeing how much progress Draper had made.

“For him to have struggled so hard and fought so long, that’s just a personal sadness for me," she said. "But I was also very keen that it didn’t then look like a waste because I thought of all the hundreds of specialist doctors, nurses and carers that had given so much of their own time to try and make things better for Derek, and they do it for everybody… I wouldn’t like them to think that that effort was a waste."

"Because those four years had purpose, were precious, and we can’t be in a society where unless you are fully functioning, contributing in a way that we’d all like, working, paying taxes, where it’s pointless," said the star.

"It’s not pointless. Life is life.”

What else did Kate Garraway say?

Garraway had two children with the former political adviser, daughter Darcey, 18, and son Billy, 14. She told how before he died, Draper felt as if he had let them down.

“Big physical and in Derek’s case, brain changes, changes the dynamic," she explained. "And I certainly was very conscious for him, he felt disempowered in so many ways.”

Garraway said Draper would say he felt that he had let down Darcey and Billy but that to them he was “a hero”. “He didn’t let them down, of course he didn’t,” she said. “But he felt like he did.”

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