ANNE SET TO BE THE PROUDEST GRANDMA

Tuesday November 18,2008

TV presenter Anne Robinson once claimed that telling the world she wanted a grandchild was “the worst mistake of my life”, causing a rift between her and her flame-haired, footloose daughter that would take years to properly heal.

Now though, the Queen of Mean’s wish is about to come true. Radio host Emma Wilson, 37, pictured with her mother right, is pregnant with her first child by her husband of two years, advertising director Liam Kan.

“Anne has wanted to be a grandmother for years now,” says a source close to The Weakest Link presenter. “This is a very exciting time for her and she is delighted, but she is also keen to keep quiet about it out of respect for Emma, who is notoriously private. She knows Emma wouldn’t want her blabbing about it.”

Anne, 64, sparked a major row with Emma, her only child by her first husband,former editor of The Times Charles Wilson, when she wrote about her desire to be a grandmother and Emma’s “failure” to produce a child, 10 years ago.

Emma refused to speak to her mother for six weeks and published a reply that attacked her mother as a “self-confessed elitist TV personality”.

Robinson’s agent last night refused to pass comment on Emma’s pregnancy, which was revealed by Judith Chalmers at the weekend at a charity lunch in honour of Michael Aspel when she mentioned that Anne was preparing for the birth of her first grandchild.

Anne divorced her second husband John Penrose last year after 27 years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences”. Her first marriage ended bitterly in 1973 when, while battling alcoholism, she lost custody of Emma to Wilson.

Since then the presenter has written a bestselling tome about her life, Memoirs Of An Unfit Mother, and starred in a BBC documentary about her tumultuous relationship with Emma, entitled Travels With My Unfit Mother.