I feel like my cancer is behind me'

TV presenter and author Julia Bradbury on a bucket-list Antarctic trip and lifestyle changes

- GEMMA CALVERT

Bidding farewell to her partner and three children before flying to Dubai for her latest work project, Julia Bradbury had to buoy up one of her 10-year-old twin daughters.

‘When I was leaving, [she] said, “Mummy, I don’t want you to go.” Personally, I think it’s important that they see a working mum, and I want to be a good example, but I don’t ever want them to feel I’m making a choice between work and them,’ she explains.

‘So I said, “This is Mummy's job, this is what I do, it helps us with our lives. My job is to travel and I come back with interesting stories for you.” Then [my son] laughed and said, “There aren’t many kids who've said their mum’s just come back from Antarctica.”’

It's been a whirlwind month for Julia. At the end of February, a few weeks before embarking on a trip to the United Arab Emirates to explore the ‘less well-known and unexpected side of Dubai’, she journeyed to the coldest continent on Earth. As a patron of the charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the 14-day trip on expedition ship Ocean Endeavour was a dream come true.

‘It's definitely been on my bucket list,’ she says of her first-ever trip to Antarctica. ‘I've been manifesting this from a work point of view, thinking, “One day work will take me.”’