Homes Under the Hammer's Martin Roberts breaks silence on life-threatening health scare
Martin Roberts has broken his silence on the life-threatening health scare he encountered two years ago. The Homes Under the Hammer presenter was taken to hospital with chest pains in April 2022 and ended up needing life-saving emergency surgery.
Martin, 60, was suffering from pericardial effusion - a build-up of fluid around the heart - causing organ failure. He still goes for regular check-ups two years after the ordeal, and says he cannot "understate the mental after-effects" of the health scare.
“The thought it could end so quickly made me desperate to do all I can because I don’t know how much longer I’ve got left. None of us do," he told the Mirror.
The dad-of-two admitted the scare made him "realise it could all be gone" and how "thing a thread we dangle from". The TV star spoke about the impact it had on him mentally as well as physically.
“I can’t understate the mental after-effects of what happened to me. The physical stuff you get over, but it’s the overriding thought it could have all ended. Everything you tried to do, and your family, you realise it could all be gone," Martin told the publication.
He said he was told to "slow down" but has since "gone the other way". Martin added: "Hopefully I’ve got many years but you never know. That whole thing that happened to me makes you realise how thin a thread we dangle from. But you can’t go through life living in that fear.”
The 60 year old has since purchased a rundown pub and hotel in the village of Blaencwm in the Rhondda Valley. He began renovating the building last January and hopes that work will be finished by the end of the summer.
Four local schools have got involved in the project and they each send eight children per week to help out with renovations. The groups of teenagers - aged between 15 and 17 years old - work with a training company, and Martin says many youngsters have transformed their lives thanks to the project, with some even going on to land apprenticeships.
Martin's passion project, which he says he is "privileged" to take part in, means he spends a lot of time away from his family home in Bath - a two-hour drive away. Thankfully, his wife Kirsty and their two teenage children, Megan and Scott, and fully onboard with Martin's latest venture, as they "understand how important" the project is to him.
