One of the best-known TV personalities in the UK, the 65-year-old has suffered from long-term difficulties, previously telling of his battle with chronic back pain after a dislocated pelvis led to three slipped discs.
The star appeared on UTV Life as he reflected on his career and spoke about his upcoming tour, This Is My Life.
Holmes told host Pamela Ballantine he was “homesick” when he left Belfast in 1986 “and it’s never changed”.
She said she uses Holmes as an example to young people who want to enter the media industry as she recalled starting her own career at UTV in 1984 when her guest was on the payroll.
Pamela admitted she was scared of Eamonn because he “sat there so focused” as she revealed she advises aspiring broadcasters seeking to imitate his success that they have to “graft”.
Over the last two years he’s been unable to travel home much because of his disability. He said it’s due to a “disc operation which went wrong in my back and it means I can’t walk” other than “50 yards or something with a stroller device, but basically I’m wheelchair bound”.
He added: “It’s a physically difficult existence.”
Holmes said he was lucky with everything he did on Ulster Television and was “poached by the BBC with this programme called Open Air”. It was amazing, he said, but he didn’t want to go, believing he had “the best job in Northern Ireland, hosting Good Evening Ulster five nights a week”.
He added: “But I had this foreboding that, what if it changed? What would you do? You have the top job. Where do you go? There’s only one way? I’m 26 years of age. The only one way to go is down.
“So I thought, I’ve got to go. And I was very homesick when I went to Manchester.
“Manchester’s a beautiful city. It’s like Belfast in many, many ways. So it was friendly, it was welcoming. London is different. It was colder. You say hello to somebody and they look at you like, you know, ‘why did you do that for me? I don’t know you’.”
He shared fond memories of presenting Farming Ulster, saying “it was my favourite programme ever of all the things that I’ve done”.
On the November tour about his life, Holmes said he’s “a bit frightened” that nobody will turn up.
“It’s a stroll through my life. It’s also looking at the Troubles, it’s talking about the influence of the Troubles and growing up in Belfast.
“And, you know, people ask you what makes you you. I can only think of a mixture of a number of things and I’m not really sure why, but I know my education in primary and secondary schools had a big impact on who I was and who I was supposed to be.
“And if you had a talent, it was your duty to see it through, whatever that talent was, whether it was a sporting talent or whether it was an intellectual talent or whatever it is.
“So in my case it was, I always wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to be a broadcaster.”
Eamonn Holmes
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He spoke of his college lecturer Joan Fitzpatrick phoning him up to say: “You always wanted to be on the TV, didn’t you? Well, Ulster Television are looking for reporters.
“And I said, well, what sort of reporter, Mrs Fitzpatrick?
“She said, ‘farming reporters’. And I went, ‘I don’t know anything about farming, Mrs Fitzpatrick, I’m a city boy, born and bred.’
“And she said, rule one of journalism, Eamonn, ‘find out.’ And she put the phone down.”