The daughter of TV presenter Lorraine Kelly has spoken out on her relationship with her Bucks-based mum, telling of her 'mum guilt' in a new book about motherhood.

The broadcaster lives in Bourne End, and her daughter Rosie Kelly Smith, a journalist and podcaster, lives a six-minute walk over the Berks border.

Rosie, 31, who has appeared with her mum on Celebrity Gogglebox and co-hosted the podcast What If? with her, interviewing famous guests, is also now a mother to 18-month-old Billie with fiancé Steve White, a car insurance operations manager.

Her new book, Mother To Mother, explores motherhood through generations of women in her family.

Lorraine Kelly and her daughter Rosie Kelly Smith (Image: Ian West/PA)

From her mum Lorraine’s birth in 1959, to her own in 1994, and to her daughter Billie’s in 2024, Rosie shares her thoughts about the changes surrounding motherhood through the generations, from an age when things weren’t really discussed, to today, when different approaches are made and myths are debunked, but some of the old advice remains relevant.

She covers everything from the early days of pregnancy, to feeding, finding friends, navigating relationships, body image and weaning – and what we can learn about parenting from our own mums.

She is well aware of the ‘mum guilt’ experienced by working women who have to leave their young children in someone else’s care when they go to work.

The podcaster remembers that her mother said “the guilt and being a working mum go hand in hand and it never got any easier”.

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In the book she recalls: “My mum said leaving for work when I was awake was horrendous. When I was tiny, I’d be up when she would be going to the studio and she would then spend most of the journey there in tears.”

But Rosie does not recall big absences when her TV presenter mum was working.

When Rosie was growing up, her mum was making her name on GMTV.

She said: "I remember her saying she had a job with Talk Radio and I was doing the nativity play, I was Mary – probably the last big role I ever had.

“She said to them (her employers), ‘I’m sorry, this is the day I can’t be here and that’s it. There’s no way I can come to work on that day. They were really awkward about it but she had boundaries. I never felt that she wasn’t there.

“She later said, ‘I can’t remember a single person that I interviewed when I did that show, but I vividly remember every second of the nativity play’. That just shows you it’s just knowing what’s important that matters.”

Rosie Kelly Smith (Image: Anna Butcher/PA)

She recalls: “In the mornings I was at school and my dad was there, so I always had a parent there. When we lived in Scotland, Mum used to fly down on a Sunday and come back on a Tuesday night. She would record the shows and then be back.

“When she had to do it live, she would fly down Sunday night, come back Thursday night and we’d always have the weekend.”

The young mum also used to sometimes accompany her mum to work at the GMTV studios to see bands and recalls a famous incident when she was six, obsessed with Westlife and wouldn’t let go of Brian McFadden.

“The show was going live and they went on air with me hanging off him like a koala bear. That’s probably my funniest story.”

She and her mum are very similar in their outlook, she muses.

“My mum’s always said to me, ‘I just want you to be happy. I don’t really mind if you’re a rocket scientist, as long as you’ve got pals and you’re happy.

“At every parents’ evening, the teachers would always be like, ‘Oh, she’s got this in her grades. Blah, blah, blah.’ My mum’s like, ‘I don’t really care. Has she got friends? Are they nice to each other?’ It’s exactly the same for Billie. I just want her to be happy.”

Kelly Smith had anxiety with every step of her pregnancy to birth – and it’s something she is still tackling.

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“It’s something that’s always in the background. I’ve always been anxious. I’ve had it since I was tiny. I wish I knew that it was amplified when you’re pregnant.”

She found great solace in friends and family.

“You just have to talk to people. For me it was my mum but it was also other mums around me, especially friends who had been mums.”

After her daughter Billie was born by caesarean, Kelly Smith was referred to a postpartum nurse and also to a CBT therapist, which helped.

She doesn’t know where her anxiety comes from, but she’s had it all her life.

“I remember going to school and thinking, ‘No-one’s going to pick me up’, even though no-one ever forgot to pick me up. It’s just always there.”

She writes about generations of women who have viewed childbirth and parenting with very different eyes as times change.

On whether things had changed for mums, Rosie said: “Not that much. When my mum had me she was effectively sacked (Kelly was dropped from GMTV shortly after returning from maternity leave, but only temporarily, as it turned out).

“I think her plan had been to take six months off but she couldn’t. She had to go back and try to find a job, so she kind of missed the whole newborn thing, going to baby classes and all that stuff.

“For her it’s been lovely to see Billie more and have that time. She always feels quite guilty that she never had that time with me.”

Lorraine Kelly and her husband Steve Smith and grand-daughter Billie (Image: Rosie Kelly Smith/PA)

Today, Lorraine Kelly, 66, is a doting grandmother, and has introduced Billie who she described as “beyond adorable” to TV viewers on her show.

With her self-titled ITV show being cut to a half-hour slot and down to just 30 weeks a year, it will surely give the presenter more time to spend with her granddaughter and free up more time to help her daughter prepare for her wedding this summer.

Mother To Mother by Rosie Kelly Smith is published by Seven Dials, priced £22.