BBC Countryfile's Matt Baker explains 'disappearance' during start of romance with wife
Countryfile presenter Matt Baker has been married to his wife Nicola for more than two decades, but their relationship has an unconventional history.
Matt Baker celebrated 20 years of marriage to physiotherapist Nicola Mooney in April this year, almost three decades after the Countryfile presenter met his love as a teenager while touring in a dance troupe.
Sparks flew when Matt, 46, and his troupe performed in Cleethorpes and he spotted stunning Nicola in the crowd.
Recalling the heartwarming moment, the former Blue Peter presenter gushed: “I was working in a 1970s dance troupe called Disco Inferno when I was 18, touring the nightclubs of the North.
“We were performing in Cleethorpes and I spotted her as soon as she came in and plucked up the courage to go over. She was there as a punter and we got chatting. Then I had to perform but I didn’t tell her.”
As Matt had concealed his identity as one of the performers, it meant he would “disappear for weeks” during their nights out together before Nicola rumbled where he was going.
Matt continued to The Telegraph: “Weeks went by and I just used to disappear a quarter of the way through the evening. Eventually, she figured out that I was one of the performers.”
Nine years after their first meeting, Matt and Nicola tied the knot in 2004 in an intimate ceremony in Winston, County Durham.
They went on to have two children, a son named Luke, 16, and a daughter Molly, 14.
In an interview with the Mirror in 2011, Matt revealed how he knew Nicola was the one from their first meeting.
He told the publication: "I'm so lucky that I met my wife Nicola before any of this telly lark started.
"I knew way back then she was the one and I don't think I could have done all this without her. She knows how intently I focus on things, and she allows me to do that. I call her my rock.”
Celebrating their 20th anniversary in April, the couple described their years together as a “fun adventure” and Nicola revealed that the presenter had sparked her love for the countryside.
She said during an appearance on Lorraine: “When I met Matt as a teenager was when I fell in love with the farm and the countryside and that way of life. Before that I had no experience of it.”
The family resided on a farm in Hertfordshire before relocating to Matt’s family farm in the Durham Dales during the Covid pandemic.
Countryfile airs on BBC One at 8pm.
