Escape To The Chateau’s Dick Strawbridge, 65, reveals the question he was scared to ask wife Angel, 46, on their first date

Dick Strawbridge has revealed what he was afraid to ask his now wife Angel on their very first date 15 years ago.

The TV star, now 65, was 50 when the couple met and he had two adult children, both then in their 20s, from his first marriage.

He said: ‘When I met Angela (Angel’s real name) I was divorced and separated and I hadn’t really been on a date. The first date I ever went on was with Angela after we had been apart for six years.

‘And I said okay. I didn’t ask her age because I always promised my daughter that I would never date anyone younger than her.

“I can’t really guess how old girls are, so I had no idea. She’s definitely a lot older than Charlotte, but I didn’t know that. So I didn’t ask. We go through life and we go our own way and we’ll see what happens.”

The TV star was 50 when the couple first met and had two adult children, both in their 20s at the time, from his first marriage

Dick and Angel, 46, rose to fame through the documentary series Escape To The Chateau, which ran from 2016 to 2022. The series followed the renovation of a dilapidated 19th-century chateau in the French countryside.

But speaking to Loose Women presenter Kaye Adams about her Podcast How to become 60, Dick admitted that he tried to end the relationship shortly after they met because he felt the 19-year age difference between them was too great.

He explained: ‘We got to the point very quickly where I said, we’ve got to stop this. This is great, I’m having a lot of fun doing it. But you’ve got to find a young man and do all the things that young people do.

‘I think – is it fair? And she actually made the statement that she wanted to be with me.

“That was one of the biggest decisions of my life. Angela was 50 years younger, 20 years older, and what are we going to do? It took less than a second for me to say, ‘What the hell, we’re going to do it.’ And that’s why I live in a castle, with two lovely young children.”

Dick, who has two adult children, James (40) and Charlotte (38), from his first marriage and Arthur (11) and Dorothy (10), from his marriage to Angel, also revealed that the couple initially had doubts about whether Escape to the Chateau would make it to TV because they were too positive about everything.

The first series followed Dick and Angel’s quest to restore the abandoned 45-room castle from its uninhabitable state – uninhabited for the past 40 years – by installing running water, heating and electricity.

Dick, 65, and Angel, 46, rose to fame through the documentary series Escape to the Chateau, which followed their renovation of a dilapidated 19th-century chateau in the French countryside

Dick and Angel doubted whether Escape To The Chateau would actually hit theaters, because they were too positive about everything

Dick, who has two adult children, James, 40, and Charlotte, 38, from his first marriage, also has Arthur, 11, and Dorothy, 10, from his marriage to Angel (pictured).

Dick also insisted that he and Angel wanted to be completely honest about what they portrayed on screen and admitted that he was concerned about their 19-year age difference when they met.

Dick’s first marriage was to Bridget A. Weiner in 1982. They separated in 2010

‘We kept saying to people when they tried to kiss, oh, if this goes wrong, is this the end of Dick and Angel’s French dream?

‘People tried to force us to decide what to do.

“Honestly, you can’t broadcast that on television because it’s not true. Because if we have a problem, we solve it and move on to the next piece. That was our mindset.”

The couple now rent out the castle as a wedding and events venue and are currently on a speaking tour of the UK.