Lauren Laverne pulls out of BBC’s Glastonbury coverage after she’s devastated by mum’s death
metro.co.ukBBC presenter Lauren Laverne, who was due to head up much of this year’s Glastonbury coverage, has paid tribute to her mother Celia, who died on Friday.The broadcaster announced last night that Lauren, 44, would no longer be appearing at the festival due to ‘personal reasons’.In a post on Instagram, the Desert Island Discs host wrote: ‘Yesterday I lost my Mam, Celia.
She was the kindest, most compassionate and most tenacious person I have ever met. Born in the middle of nine kids, she was a master peacemaker and persuader.‘She passed her 11+ and went to grammar school which changed our family’s direction forever.
Met my Dad at 16 and loved him every day of her life. She ran the only reggae club night in the NE and told me that being young in the 60s felt like that line in Mr Tambourine Man “to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free”.‘She worked as a seamstress and a casino dancer (also making costumes for the troupe) to pay her way through college and became a wonderful teacher, eventually managing all Sunderland’s colleges.’Lauren recalled her mum’s brilliant political notions, adding: ‘Somewhere along the line she had me and my brother and got political (she once chased someone from the BNP down our garden path with a rolling pin in one hand and me in the other arm) protested at Greenham Common and eventually became a city councillor.
She delighted in helping people, especially those who like her knew what it was like to grow up without.The presenter paid tribute to her mum’s role as a mother and grandmother, continuing: ‘She had watched so many decades of history documentaries that when we met historian Michael Wood they chatted away like colleagues.
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