James Martin has addressed how he manages to read the autocue on his show with having severe dyslexia. While demonstrating a fish recipe in his kitchen today with guest Lucrezia Millarini, the ITV newsreader asked James, 51, how he managed to juggle cooking with speaking to the camera.
Sharing his secret, he said: “Well, like you do the reading, I’m severely dyslexic. I have this amazing woman called Sam, Sam [on the] autocue, who puts stuff on bigger type for me so that I can properly read it.”
James has made no secret of his dyslexia in the past and previously revealed that he was only diagnosed aged 30 following many difficult years. Speaking previously on his show, he said: “A lot of this crew think I’m ignoring them, it’s mainly because I have trouble reading a script.”
While a guest on Loose Women in 2022, the chef also shared that while having the learning difficulty had been a problem particularly at school, he has turned it into a positive in his career and released 34 books. Having also had previous struggles with presenting, James said dyslexia had “inadvertently gifted me with an interview style people seem to find relaxing”.
The chef proves this statement with the many guests he’s had on the show he’s fronted since 2017. On the most recent episode, he was joined in his kitchen by his former Ready Steady Cook co-stars Paul Rankin and Lesley Waters, First Dates’ Merlin Griffiths as well as Lucrezia.
Later on in a discussion with the latter, the newsreader was keen to know more about James and his time on the show.
Quizzed on whether he gets nervous, the chef said his greatest experience with nerves was when he did Strictly Come Dancing.
In response, Lucrezia said she knew all too well about the feeling having competed on Dancing On Ice.
Wanting to hear more about her history, the chef went on to ask the ITV star about a tragic balcony accident which almost cost her her life.
Aged just 22, the journalist was hospitalised after a balcony collapsed during a holiday with her boyfriend at the time, in Greece.
Recalling the horrific incident, she shared with James: “The balcony went and we went falling, this was in Greece on an island. Luckily, we had health and travel insurance.
“We got airlifted to Athens. The best part was, they had just had an earthquake in Athens so we were kind of left at this hospital which was already inundated, so it was quite a traumatic event, but also served as a bit of an epiphany for me, as I always say.
“I just thought do you know what? You could have died. Let’s pursue the thing you wanted to originally and took a year off and did a bit of travelling.”
Much to James’ shock, the newsreader went on to say after taking a break, she fell off of another balcony while in Capetown, South Africa.
“It was another collapsing balcony as well but there were many more people on it,” she shared. “But again, I was luckily OK.”
Following on from the incident, she switched careers from law to becoming a journalist and newsreader.
Saturday Morning airs weekly from 9:30am on ITV and ITVX.
