MY CHANGING WIVES BROKE ANNA'S HEART

THE father of Changing Rooms designer Anna Ryder-Richardson has told how he left his family...and wrecked her young life.

Former Lloyds insurance director Colin Ryder-Richardson walked out on his wife and six children after falling in love with his yoga teacher when Anna was just eight.

He said last night: "Anna really suffered, but I just couldn't stay."

Anna, 33, who has shot to fame on the hit BBC1 show has said: "I was heartbroken. I hated all men and didn't trust any of them when my father first left us."

Colin, 68, and his first wife Jill adopted Anna and her sister Katie after four children of their own. He says it was the stress of bringing them all up that helped drive him into another woman's arms.

"We both loved the kids, but Jill was very maternal and was always involved with them. I felt she was crucifying herself on the cross marked 'Mother' and that makes it very difficult to be a lover.

"Occasionally, I wanted to come home to a surprise, perhaps an evening out or a party, but instead everything revolved around the children."

A row over Anna's education almost proved the final straw. Colin said: "My firm tried to make me redundant and I told Jill that Anna and Katie might have to go to a state school instead of private."

But it was Colin's affair with married yoga teacher Rosemary that brought Anna's world crashing down. He had taken up yoga to beat the stress of work and home life and said: "Rosemary was a shoulder to weep on and everything just came to a head."

Just months later the family were forced to sell their home in upmarket Virginia Water, Surrey and Colin told his family he was leaving to move in with Rosemary. "There were some very unhappy people," confessed Colin.

"Anna was one of the youngest and was very upset. One minute we were all together and the next she was moving house and her father was leaving.

"It hurt me to leave my children behind. I knew what Anna was going through, but I felt I had come to a crisis - and Rosemary was there to give me support.

"If I was having problems at work she would understand whereas Jill would probably say 'I'm sorry about that, but this child has grazed her knee.'

After the split Colin decided not to visit the children because he believed seeing them occasionally would only cause them more pain.

"Rosemary and I decided we were going to have to build bridges with them, but that we would do it when it was right. We didn't want to rush them. And I let them know that if they needed me they only had to ring."

Anna's next meeting with her father was to come at her older brother's wedding three years later. But Colin didn't recognise her. He said: "When I left home Anna had a pig-tail and the next time she had a mass of frizzy hair.

"She came rushing over in her usual way, full of spirits, and we took up from there as if we had never been apart."

Colin beat stomach cancer and now runs the charity New Approaches To Cancer which promotes holistic treatment. He and Anna have rebuilt their relationship and he is very proud of his daughter and her TV fame.

"She is brilliant and has done really well for herself, and I think what happened has helped her to stand on her own two feet," he said.

Copyright 1998 MGN LTD
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