Five-times-married Jan Leeming resorts to the internet to find Mr Right


In her heyday as a BBC TV newsreader she was never short of admirers - five marriages are the proof of that.

But at the age of 66, Jan Leeming has had to resort to the lonely hearts column in her search for male company.

She placed an advert under the name of Cheetahgirl, seeking a 'long and loving relationship' with a man who shares her taste for adventure.



Managing to lose six years off her age, Miss Leeming describes herself as a slim, blonde and 'very attractive' Capricorn of 60, but adds: 'I am often taken for late forties/early fifties.'

Cheetahgirl's profile states: 'Fun-loving and adventurous, I have worked in New Zealand and Australia and travelled much of the world.'

She says she has learned to ski, gone husky-sledding and done aerobatics. 'A sedentary life is not for me. Once in a while I can dance till dawn.'

Miss Leeming, who recently appeared in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, omits to mention that she has also been trapped in a dark tunnel while rats ran over her face, or shut in a box with snakes. Posting a photograph of herself posing winsomely with her chin on her hands, she adds: 'I am fun-loving, very young in heart and still with a mischievous desire to do things "older" people don't do.'

Canterbury-based Miss Leeming tells the Kindred Spirits website that she hopes to meet a man aged 58 to 65, attractive and 6ft to 6ft 5in. It is ' decidedly important' that he should have an athletic body.

'I would like a person who is kind, loving, adventurous - with a love of animals, nature and the performing arts,' she continues. And he must be of a generous nature. I am not looking for wealth but cannot tolerate meanness. I am not interested in a philanderer - there have been enough of those!!!!'

Miss Leeming, who has a son, Jonathan, from her third marriage, is a former actress who read the BBC news from 1980 to 1987. Her Cheetahgirl name comes from her long-standing support for a cheetah conservation charity in South Africa.

She told the Daily Mail that she had placed the advert because 'I get invitations to events. My lovely son often acts as my escort but he has his own life to lead and can't spend all his spare time accompanying his mother.'

Miss Leeming said none of the men who had responded to her advert had spotted her true identity, despite the photograph on the website.
'It's been great fun, and I've had some lovely email conversations. They are definitely not a bunch of losers.'

The woman who called her 2003 autobiography Addicted To Love added: 'I'm not looking for anything serious, although over the years I've learnt never to say never, so watch this space.'
Miss Leeming married BBC sound engineer John Staple in 1961. She was 19 and he was 33. The marriage lasted seven months and she moved on to Owen Leeming, whose surname she took although they never married.

In 1972 she married estate agent Jeremy Gilchrist, who soon left her for a Swedish woman. Husband No 3 was BBC radio announcer Patrick Lunt, in 1980.

The couple had a son together, Jonathan, but Miss Leeming said they 'weren't that well suited', and went on to marry a Red Arrows pilot, Eric Steenson. Meanwhile Mr Lunt married the pilot's ex-wife Robin.

Mr Steenson left her for another woman in 1995 and two years later she married headmaster Chris Russell. He walked out after four years but Miss Leeming has never given up on finding Mr Right.