Miranda Hart’s marriage news has a message of hope for single Christian women who want the same

Miranda Hart, the much loved actress from the eponymous TV show, Miranda, has recently married. When she revealed the news on BBC’s The One Show on the 8th October, it produced an out-pouring of joy from the public. There was also a flurry of WhatsApp messages amongst my friends as we shared the good news with each other.

It’s always nice to hear of someone falling in love and getting married, but there is something special about Miranda’s news, and I think it’s strongly related to hope.

Although famous and successful, as a 6ft1 single lady in her fifties, statistics were not on Miranda’s side in finding love.

Although famous and successful, as a 6ft1 single woman in her fifties, statistics were not on Miranda’s side when it comes to the likelihood of finding love. Many single Christian women going into midlife feel the same. They may have the desire for marriage and companionship, but the idea of meeting someone to partner with feels unlikely.

However, Miranda’s story reminds us that love can come in the least expected places and ways. I know this to be true personally, and have written about my story here.

Miranda, 51, has been out of the media spotlight for almost a decade, with the final episode of Miranda showing in January 2015. Although continuing to work, playing Miss Bates in the Jane Austen adaptation film Emma for example, Miranda shared previously that she was “bedbound for years” after her undiagnosed Lyme disease progressed into myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). She has also talked of being plagued by agoraphobia, anxiety and panic attacks since her student years at Bristol polytechnic.

Miranda was living alone in West London when she employed her now husband, Richard Fairs, 60, to help treat the mould in her house. 

Miranda was living alone in West London when she employed her now husband, Richard Fairs, 60, to help treat the mould in her house. Apparently she affectionately calls him ‘the mould man’.

She only revealed her husband’s identity at Cheltenham Literature Festival recently, where she was speaking about her new memoir. What a brilliant coup to have kept this huge secret from the press until the day of the book release!

Miranda told the festival audience how she and Fairs had chatted for hours in her living room while they waited for pizzas to be delivered on their first date.

“Unfortunately mine had shunted its way across the box and turned into a calzone,” she said. “I was going on and on about my shunted pizza and it did not seem to faze him.

“We had already been talking for about two hours at this point and I realised almost immediately that I was in love with him.”

Miranda continued: “It was our first date and to my surprise he came back for a second date, despite me having gone on and on about that pizza.” Richard Fairs ended up proposing at Kew Gardens in London and they married in July in Hampshire where Hart grew up.

She has now become a stepmother to her new husband’s two children from his ex, Jeanne Speight, who he was with for over 25 years before they separated in 2017.

Speaking on The One Show Miranda said: “He’s my best friend, we have the best fun and I’m just thrilled to be a young bride at 51.”

She went on to say, “The fact that I met someone during a pandemic, during chronic illness when I couldn’t get out of bed or get out of the house, and I really really wanted to meet someone. I didn’t want to do life on my own any more, and I kind of admitted that to myself and I tell that story in the book.

“The fact that I could meet somebody is not some kind of rom-com story, but it’s hope, there is always hope, things can always change.”

I love that truth, so much so that I wrote Isabella’s Voyage, a historical fiction novel with that very premise. It is about a spinster thinking her life is stuck, when circumstances suddenly change, and she finds unexpected adventure and eventually love.

A verse I held onto in the waiting was Ephesians 3:16: 

‘God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can hope for or imagine.’ It looks like he has done that for Miranda, and if you are hoping for the same, may he do it for you too.