Kate Garraway reacts to MBE as she offers update on husband Derek Draper's Covid recovery

The former political adviser from Chorley became seriously ill with Covid-19 in March 2020 and spent months in hospital.

While he is now free of the virus and has been able to come home, he has sustained long-lasting damage to his organs and has been photographed using a wheelchair.

Discussing a recent trip to the theatre to see a pantomime, Garraway told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “He’s doing all right. He is phenomenally fatigued at the moment, he’s very fatigued and very weak.

“Actually the trip to the pantomime, he was then not out of bed afterwards, but he thought it was worth it.

“But he’s there looking smiley, present. The speech isn’t there but I think you can see that he’s aware that something special is happening.

“That morning I said ‘You’re very tired, do you want to do this?’. And he said ‘Yes, yes’.”

Garraway has been made an MBE in the New Year Honours for her services to broadcasting, journalism and charity and said she struggled to believe it was real until people started to congratulate her.

“I actually feel very awkward about it all really, I don’t know why, because I’m thrilled to bits and incredibly honoured,” she said.

“But you just sort of think, ‘What? Me?’. And then you think it’s not real.”

She added: “I still didn’t quite believe it until on New Year’s Eve when I think it was announced and people started saying congratulations.

“But it’s a strange feeling, because you know, it’s things that other people get.”

Garraway said she has received some negative comments about why she has received the honour, adding: “I think it has strange feelings. And there have been a few comments since it was announced of people saying ‘Why has she got this? I look after my loved one’.

“I haven’t got it for looking after Derek. It is for broadcasting and I think also charity work. But you know there’s lots of people that you feel deserve it more. So it’s a strange feeling.”

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