The Masked Singer star Gloria Hunniford has reflected on the "deeper loss" she felt when her daughter Caron Keating died.
This year will also bring sadness, as Gloria’s daughter – who died from breast cancer aged 41 in 2004 – would have turned 60 in October.
The 81-year-old tearfully told Love Sunday Magazine: “[Losing a child is] the worst kind of death you can suffer.
"When you are pregnant, you carry that baby for nine months.
"It doesn’t matter what age that baby loses his or her life, there’s something about the physical part of giving birth that gives you a deeper loss. It can never go away, you just have to learn to live with it."
She added, “I felt it a privilege to be with her at birth and at the end as well.”
Gloria reveals the family would have been busy organising a big party for her daughter.
"What a party we would have had if she’d turned 60!" she said.
"I can’t believe she would have been 60, Caron’s been gone for 18 years and I still think of her as she was as a baby.
The loving mum admits she thinks of Caron every day and wishes she'd been around to see her sons grow up.
"Somebody said to me recently, 'Do you think of Caron very often?' I said, 'Are you crazy? I think of Caron every single day,'" shesaid.
"When one of her sons, Charlie, graduated from university... oh, how she would have loved that.
"She would love the holidays we have, we used to go to this part of France regularly and after Caron died, my two sons, my husband Stephen and myself, bought a house out there.
"I see her all the time there walking along the cobbled streets. I wish she had seen her fabulous boys grow up."
Gloria has been a showbiz staple for more than 70 years, but she still managed to shock the nation when she was unveiled as the Snow Leopard on The Masked Singer.
“It took me all of 10 seconds to say yes to being on the show,” she tells us as we catch up after the big reveal.
Her performance on the ITV show is the start of another busy year for Gloria, who used to sing on stage with her magician father when she was seven, with more presenting on Loose Women and Rip Off Britain.
