Good Morning Britain's Richard Madeley shares health woes after dad's premature death

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Good Morning Britain's Richard Madeley has opened up about his previous heavy smoking habits on the ITV morning programme, revealing he once puffed away at "60 a day".The veteran broadcaster described himself as "grizzled and old" while discussing with fellow presenter Kate Garraway how secondhand smoke has impacted him since kicking the habit.

He commented: "Speaking as a grizzled old git, I usually know what I think about stories like this, but on this one I'm really split as an ex-smoker."In a conversation about the proposed banishment of smoking in open spaces such as pub gardens and play areas, Madeley reflected on a personal encounter.Delving into his own recent experience, Richard recounted: "Only three or four days ago in this lovely weather, I was having a coffee on the pavement cafe in North London that I like to go to, in the sunshine.

The guy next to me lit up, as he was completely entitled to do, and the breeze was blowing it towards me, so I was breathing in his smoke." He mused over the dilemma of smoker's rights versus non-smoker's comfort, adding: "I didn't know whether to say something or not, because I couldn't work out in my head whose right trumped whose his right to light up and have a cigarette on the pavement over a coffee or my right to have a coffee and read the paper without breathing in foul tobacco smoke," reports the Mirror.

Kate weighed in on the topic as Richard expressed his hesitancy to confront the smoker: "Well I was tolerant, I didn't want to make a scene.