Who Is Nick Knowles? 10-month-long health battle with long Covid – NICK was struck down by Covid at the start of lockdown, and he describes the experience as “pretty bad.” For the next ten months, he was plagued by the aftereffects of Long Covid. The DIY SOS star kept this a secret to keep his job.
The 59-year-old revealed details of his Covid ordeal on ITV’s Lorraine. He said: “I’m good now. I had it really bad at the start of lockdown, I got Covid pretty bad. And me being impatient tried to get straight back into exercise directly afterwards. There seems to be some correlation or suggestion now that actually going too hard, exercising too soon after Covid, can actually cause you problems.” Nick was told by doctors he had long Covid, which went on 10 months after the initial infection.
Who Is Nick Knowles?
Nicholas Simon Augustine Knowles (born 21 September 1962) is an English television presenter, writer and musical artist. He is best known for his presenting roles on the BBC, including game shows Who Dares Wins (2007–2019), Break the Safe (2013–2014) and 5-Star Family Reunion (2015–2016). Knowles presents the DIY series DIY SOS (1999–present) for BBC One and co-presented the daytime series Real Rescues (2007–2013).
Knowles was born in Southall, Middlesex. At the age of 11, Knowles moved to Mildenhall in Suffolk, attending St Louis Middle School and moved again, attended Gunnersbury Catholic School for Boys.
After another family move, he attended the Skinners’ School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Leaving school at 16, he had a variety of dead-end jobs, labouring on building sites, working in a petrol station and selling shoes and carpets.
He played in bands from the age of 14 and was constantly writing music, poetry and comedy, until he submitted a script to a BBC2 programme that invited children to make a video.
Knowles began as a runner in television production, before moving into presenting. Knowles was a reporter for TVS in the South East, reporting on the nightly news programme Coast To Coast, mostly covering upbeat reports, until TVS lost its contract in 1992.[citation needed] In the early 1990s, he presented a show called Ridge Riders for ITV. This featured a celebrity and another one or two guests riding classic motorcycles along off-road tracks around the UK. The viewer was treated to historic and local information about the locality as well as informal chats with the celebrity. Knowles appeared as a member of Channel 5’s chat show 5’s Company between 1997 and 1999.
He is principally known as the main host of DIY SOS, a home renovation series broadcast on BBC One since 1999, and has presented the BBC factual show Real Rescues since 2007. Knowles has also hosted several entertainment programmes for the BBC since signing an exclusive contract with them, including Who Dares Wins, Last Choir Standing, Guesstimation, Secret Fortune and Perfection.
Knowles has also presented programmes with a wildlife theme. In 2007, he fronted Mission Africa, in which a team of volunteers constructed a game reserve in Kenya. During this project, Knowles fell from a Land Rover, dislocating his shoulder. He flew back to the UK to receive emergency treatment.
In the same year, he reported on the plight of orphaned orangutans for an edition of Saving Planet Earth. In 2009, Knowles co-presented the BBC reality TV series Wildest Dreams with James Honeyborne, in which novice candidates had to complete a set of challenging tasks filming wild animals in Africa. The winner joined the BBC Natural History Unit on a one-year placement.
From 2011 to 2015, Knowles was the presenter of the BBC game show Perfection, in which the candidates must achieve absolute perfection to win the jackpot, aired weekdays on BBC One.
From 2013 to 2014, he presented the BBC National Lottery game show Break the Safe. In 2015, Knowles began presenting a new BBC One National Lottery game show 5-Star Family Reunion, which returned for a second series in 2016.
In May 2016, Knowles presented Invictus: The Road to the Games, a one-off programme for the BBC.
Knowles earned between £300,000 and £349,999 as a BBC presenter for the financial year 2016–2017.
In 2018 he participated in the eighteenth series of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, finishing in sixth place, after being voted out on 6 December.
In May 2021, it was reported that Knowles was holding talks with the BBC regarding his role as the main host of DIY SOS due to his appearance in a Shreddies TV advert which violated BBC’s commercial agreements and guidelines. A week later, the BBC announced that they had resolved the issue and Knowles will return to his DIY SOS role with filming to resume in the coming months and is expected to be back on screens in 2022.
Nick Knowles 10-month-long health battle with long Covid – ‘I didn’t tell anybody’
He said: “You’re just like no energy at all. Absolutely knackered the whole time.
“But I didn’t want to tell anybody because I might not get a booking for work. I kept it to myself.
“So I’m climbing up huge buildings, seven storey buildings, and having to stop every two ladders, ‘I’m just taking in the view’.
“But I managed to get through it actually, amazingly about seven or eight months ago started to feel better and I’ve started on the fitness again.”
Nick Knowles suffered a 10-month-long health battle that he didn’t tell anybody about (Image: ITV)
The NHS says how long it takes to recover from Covid is different for everybody. While many people feel better in a few days or weeks and make a full recovery within 12 weeks, for some people, symptoms can last longer.
The health body lists common long Covid symptoms as:
- extreme tiredness (fatigue)
- shortness of breath
- chest pain or tightness
- problems with memory and concentration (“brain fog”)
- difficulty sleeping (insomnia)
- heart palpitations
- dizziness
- pins and needles
- joint pain
- depression and anxiety
- tinnitus, earaches
- feeling sick, diarrhoea, stomach aches, loss of appetite
- a high temperature, cough, headaches, sore throat, changes to sense of smell or taste
- rashes
If you’re worried about symptoms four weeks or more after having coronavirus, contact a GP.
The NHS states: “Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and the impact they’re having on your life.
“They may suggest some tests to find out more about your symptoms and rule out other things that could be causing them.
“These might include blood tests, checking your blood pressure and heart rate, and a chest X-ray.”
Nick Knowles said he felt “absolutely knackered” the whole time (Image: GETTY
Another time Nick opened up about his health was in 2017, after suffering a healthy scare.
He told Good Morning Britain at the time he’d “taken up yoga, given up meat and even went a week without eating food at all.”
The lifestyle change came after he appeared on BBC show The Retreat, which followed Nick for four weeks as he adopted a plant-based diet.
Speaking to Express.co.uk about his health makeover he revealed: “A year and a half ago I was really, really, unwell.
“I was carrying a lot of stress from work and things.
“Actually on my way to these studios here to do a pilot for a new show I sneezed in the back of a taxi and burst an artery in my sinuses.
“It wasn’t just a nose bleed – I had to have an emergency operation to get it sorted out.”
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Post source: Express
Reference: Wikipedia
