Escape To The Chateau’s Dick Strawbridge, 65, reveals the question he was scared to ask wife Angel, 46, on their first date

Dick Strawbridge has revealed the one thing he was scared to ask his now wife, Angel on their first ever date 15 years ago. 

The TV star, now 65, was 50 when the couple first met and he had two adult children, both then in their 20s, from his first marriage.

He said: ‘When I met Angela (Angel’s real name) I had been divorced and separated and I hadn’t actually gone out for a date. The first date I ever went on was with Angela, after having been separated for six years.

‘And I said OK. I didn’t ask her age, because I’d always promised my daughter, I’d never go out with anybody younger than her.

‘I can’t actually guess what age girls are, so I had no idea. As it was, she is definitely a lot older than Charlotte, but I didn’t know. So, I didn’t ask. We go through life and we go on our path and we see what happens.’

The TV star was 50 when the couple first met and had two adult children, both then in their 20s, from his first marriage

Dick and Angel, 46, found fame in the documentary series Escape To The Chateau, which ran from 2016 to 2022, and tracked their renovation of a run-down 19th century castle in rural France.

But speaking to Loose Women anchor Kaye Adams on her How to be 60 podcast, Dick admitted he tried to end the relationship soon after they met because he thought that the 19 year-age gap between them was too much.

He explained: ‘We got to the stage really quite quickly where I said – we have to stop this. This is wonderful, I’m having a lot of fun. But you need to go and find a young man and go and do all the things that young people do.

‘I’m thinking – is it fair? And she actually made the statement that she wanted to be with me.

‘Now that was one of the biggest decisions of my life. Over 50, Angela was 20 years younger and what do we do? It did take me less than a second to say: ‘what the hell, we’re going to do it.; And that’s the reason I’m living in a castle, with two lovely young kids.’

Dick, who has two adult children James, 40 and Charlotte, 38, from his first marriage and Arthur, 11, and Dorothy, 10, from his marriage to Angel, also revealed that the couple initially doubted whether Escape to the Chateau would actually make it to screen, because they were too positive about everything.

The first series followed Dick and Angel’s quest to restore the derelict 45 room chateau from its uninhabitable state – nobody had lived there for the previous 40 years – by installing running water, heating and electricity 

Dick, 65, and Angel, 46, found fame in the documentary series Escape to the Chateau, which tracked their renovation of a run-down 19th century castle in rural France

Dick and Angel doubted whether Escape To The Chateau would actually make it to screen, because they were too positive about everything 

Dick, who has two adult children James, 40 and Charlotte, 38, from his first marriage, also has Arthur, 11, and Dorothy, 10, from his marriage to Angel, (pictured) 

Dick was also insistent that himself and Angel wanted to be completely honest about what they put on screen and admits he was concerned about their 19-yea age gap when they met

‘We kept telling people whenever they were trying to make out – oh if this goes wrong, is this the end of Dick and Angel’s French dream?

‘People were trying to make us decide what to do. 

‘Quite honestly you can’t put that on television because it’s not true, because if we have a problem, we’ll fix it and we’ll go on to the next bit. That was our mindset.’

The couple now rent out the chateau as a wedding and events venue and are currently on a nationwide UK speaking tour.