Richard Madeley has said that his mother “hated” him for deciding to leave education when he was a teenager.
The veteran TV host was 16 when he went to work for his local paper, a move his mother disapproved of.
The 69-year-old made the confession while talking to Good Morning Britain co-host Charlotte Hawkins on A-level results day.
“Well, I left school at 16 to join the local paper,” he said. “My mum thought it was a very bad move, my dad thought it was great.”
"My mum hated me as I started work when I was 16 and she insisted that I go to night school and take A-Levels there. So, I took an English A-Level and I got a B, I think."
Madeley’s decision proved to be fruitful for his career as, within two years at the paper, he had been promoted to assistant editor. Just three years later, he joined the BBC.
Earlier in the show, Madeley asked Hawkins how she had fared in her own A-levels. “I got three As” the 50-year-old said.
Madeley jokingly replied: “Oh there's always one, isn't there?:
Hawkins added that her results were not her predicted grades as she hadn’t performed well in her mock exams.
“We all went to the school to get them, it was really special and I was not expecting that at all,” she continued. “I think having not done very well when it came to the mock exams obviously gave me some impetus to think, 'Well, I need to get cracking on this.'"
A-level top grades have risen again in 2025 to reach a record high outside of the Covid years, while a record number of students have been accepted onto UK degree courses.
More than a quarter (28.3 per cent) of UK entries were awarded an A or A* grade, up by 0.5 percentage points on last year, when 27.8 per cent achieved the top grades.
This was higher than in 2019, the last year that summer exams were taken before the pandemic, when 25.4 per cent of entries were awarded A or A* grades.
It is the highest proportion of entries scoring top grades outside the pandemic-affected years of 2020-22, according to the figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Boys have outperformed girls in terms of top grades for the first time in seven years.
Additional reporting by PA.
