My stint on I’m A Celeb paid for our renewal… I call it the jungle room, ex-MP Edwina Currie reveals in ME & MY MONEY

Edwina Currie, 77, is an author and one of Westminster’s most colorful alumni, writes Angela Epstein. Liverpool-born Currie was MP for South Derbyshire from 1983 to 1997 and served as a minister under Margaret Thatcher.

But her career came to an abrupt end in 1988 when, as Parliamentary Secretary of State for Health, she issued a warning about salmonella in British eggs and resigned. Married twice – her second husband, John Jones, died of cancer in 2020 – Edwina has two children and two grandchildren and lives in Derbyshire.

What did your parents teach you about money?

To be careful with it. There wasn’t much to do in the devastated Liverpool after the Second World War. My father was a tailor and my mother a housewife. My father sadly died in 1975 at the age of 65 of a heart attack, leaving him with £400. We children encouraged Mom to go to work – not least to help with the grieving process. She worked until she was 75 and did files for a law firm.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

It wasn’t easy in the early years of my first marriage. Ray (her first husband) was a chartered accountant; we lived in Birmingham with two small children and had a mortgage that was drowning us. We had bought a three-bedroom house on the Bournville estate, with a large garden, fruit trees and roses.

I set myself an ambitious target to earn £1,000 a year by taking on students from the University of Birmingham. The agreement was that they could get a room at a lower rent if they would look after us one evening a week.

I also tutored at the Open University.

What’s the most expensive thing you bought for fun?

I was in Dublin in 1994 on tour for my bestseller A Parliamentary Affair when I came across a small jewelery shop with a 1930s Rolex in the window. It felt like a pat on the back for the hard work. It was also nice to buy a Tesla – it hardly costs anything to run, but repairs are expensive.

What’s the biggest money mistake you’ve made?

Buying venture capital trusts (VCTs) – they are good to buy and almost impossible to sell. If they fall and have no value, they won’t pay you anything. I lost about £20,000 about 20 years ago, which was a huge blow.

Edwina appeared on I’m A Celebrity, where she says she was paid a five-figure sum ‘in return for three weeks of pleasant weather in a beautiful country, sitting in the shade of a tree canopy with lovely people’

The best money decision you’ve made?

When I stopped being a minister and started writing books that were successful, I decided to set up a pension fund. I started when I was 50 and continued paying until I was 75, when my accountant said: ‘stop and start drawing’.

I have a Ukrainian family that has been staying with me for over two years and recently I took them to Barcelona. I also took them to Croatia as a birthday present for one of the boys. He loves the band Imagine Dragons and we all went to this great outdoor concert.

How many properties do you own?

I have two. There’s my house, a 400-year-old three-bedroom cottage in Derbyshire. And thanks to my writing, I am a shareholder in a company that owns a house in the next village that is rented out. Once it is empty, I hope my Ukrainian guests will find a home there.

The family fled from Donbas to Odessa in 2014 and when the second invasion happened two years ago, they fled to Moldova and I heard about them through a friend. John had just passed away after a long battle with cancer and I thought: I have the space. If they can tolerate me, I can tolerate them too. And it was delicious. Moreover, my grandmother was born in Ukraine.

I used to be a bigger ‘landlord’; At one point I bought a flat in Liverpool for my mother and told her the rent was £1 a year and a good chicken dinner. At least that meant I could keep an eye on her!

Have you ever been given stupid money?

I was paid a five-figure sum for taking part in I’m A Celebrity – in return for three weeks of pleasant weather in a beautiful country, sitting in the shade of a tree canopy with lovely people.

When I got back from Australia, the money was burning a hole in my pocket, so we spent it converting our garage into an extension. Before we did this, people would stand on top of each other when we had parties at home in our cottage! I call the extension the jungle room. It has a mural depicting exotic animals such as birds of paradise, bush babies and 23 species of critters.

If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

I think I’ll run away. No, seriously, trying to balance competing demands for more money needed for things like health care, improving roads and developing nuclear power and lowering taxes is a very tricky thing.

I would recognize that we need international investment and that means welcoming foreigners – and not punishing non-doms, which I think is a huge slap in the foot.

Do you give money to charity?

Blythe House Hospice Care (blythehousehospice.org.uk) in Derbyshire is one such important charity. When John was suffering from cancer he didn’t go to a hospice – the charity manages hospice care at home. This was invaluable as he was ill during lockdown. If John had gone to the hospital, we wouldn’t have been able to visit him. I appealed to Blythe House, who arranged care, a hospital bed at home and a visit from a palliative care doctor. John passed away in November 2020 at the age of 79.

What is your number one financial priority?

It’s the same as my parents: paying the bills. I’m still that young girl in devastated Liverpool who hears my mother worrying about paying the bills. If I can’t afford something, I don’t do it. It’s the safest way to live.