April Hutchinson has become the latest guest to appear on The Holiday That Changed My Life, a new podcast series about business, travel and lifestyle.
The editor and publisher of TTG Luxury joined podcast host and founder of Travel Seen Jennifer Atkinson and journalist Chris Maguire in a Manchester studio for the candid conversation, covering everything from the death of her beloved mother to her breast cancer diagnosis. Laughs were also aplenty; Hutchinson shared the hilarious story behind her name (no, she wasn’t born in April) and joked about the ‘terrible’ funeral recording on Zoom that left her squinting throughout the service.
As per tradition with Atkinson and Maguire’s podcast, which invites high-profile guests to discuss one trip that forever changed their life, the episode kicked off by exploring the chapters of Hutchinson’s early years in Widnes, where she was born.
“Like most people’s childhoods, mine felt idyllic at the time,” she recalls in the podcast. “I played gymnastics in the garden, I went to Christmas parties at my dad’s factory, and we would look forward to the toys we’d receive there. I had two big sisters who took good care of me, and lots of lovely friends who lived locally.” Despite being close to her relatives (her paternal grandmother lived around the corner), financial strain sometimes limited how much quality time she could spend with her mum and dad.
“I felt like my parents were never there, because they were always working,” Hutchinson admits. “My mum had several different jobs – in the pub, in the cleaners. It would be a case of having to snatch a bit of their attention.”
Hutchinson’s family unit became even more fractured when, at age 11, her parents separated and she moved to Hertfordshire with her mother and her new partner. It was during this difficult transition period that she found solace in literature, and her passion for words was born.
“It was quite isolating when my parents split up, so I spent a lot of time burying my head in books,” Hutchinson says. “I loved my Saturday afternoons in WH Smith and the library, reading whatever I could get my hands on. I was a real bookworm!”
Written material would also be the source of Hutchinson’s first ever holiday abroad; her mother funded the family’s inaugural overseas trip to Spain using The Sun holiday vouchers, a scheme still offered by the tabloid newspaper today. “It was a very long coach journey, but it was so exciting. I’d never been outside the UK before,” Hutchinson recalls.
Her wanderlust had officially been sparked; after graduating from Bournemouth University with a degree in journalism, she landed her first media job as an editorial assistant on a magazine for travel agents. She went on to co-launch Abta Magazine, and following a number of years as a freelance writer and editor, she was the founding editor of TTG Luxury.
Since the start of her career, Hutchinson has visited almost 75 countries and accumulated a cargo plane’s worth of memories from her travels. As can be expected from someone who’s spent so much time abroad though, not all of these trips have been sunshine and rainbows – with one, in particular, turning into a particularly sombre experience.
Travelling in grief
At the time of her mother’s passing, Hutchinson was on a once-in-a-lifetime press trip to Antarctica with Silversea – over 10,000 miles from home.
Years prior, her mum had moved to Spain after many enjoyable decades of holidaying there, and as a result, staying in touch had grown difficult. With Hutchinson’s own work schedule requiring her to travel extensively, catch-ups had become relegated to FaceTime, WhatsApp and the occasional flying visit.
As her mother’s health began to deteriorate in old age, Hutchinson considered cancelling her place on the voyage to Antarctica to be by her side in Spain. However, her sisters, insisting it’s what her mother would have wanted, urged her to go on the trip. Within hours of setting sail, Hutchinson received the devastating news.
“We were having dinner, when my sister messaged to say, ‘Mum’s gone’,” Hutchinson recalls. “By that point, we had already gone through the Drake Passage and we were sailing around Antarctica. There was nothing I could do.”
Despite being ‘incredibly supported’ by the cruise line and her fellow journalists on board, Hutchinson admits that all she wanted was ‘to be comforted by my family’ as she processed her grief.
“Nothing can prepare you for the death of a parent. I thought, ‘Of all the times I am travelling, I am the furthest away from anywhere I can be when my mum dies.’ There was a weird irony in it.”
To make an already painful situation worse, Hutchinson was unable to return to Europe in time to attend the funeral in person.
“Being in Spain, which is a Catholic country, funerals have to happen quite quickly. Within three days, everything had to be arranged,” she explained. “I ended up watching the funeral via Zoom. It didn’t help that the camera work was terrible! I have to find some kind of humour in everything.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Hutchinson reflected on another holiday that changed her life – at first for the worst, and later, for the better. Her ex-husband told her he was leaving her during a trip to Amsterdam in 2008 after 14 years together, including 18 months of marriage. The separation, which had been exacerbated by their respective busy careers, ended up being a blessing in disguise that prompted Hutchinson to rediscover herself and reassess her definition of happiness.
“In hindsight, it was absolutely the best thing,” Hutchinson says. “I’ve found an inner calm within myself. It sounds cheesy, but I am enough. I learned I could be on my own – up until that point, I had always lived with someone. It was a forced independence but it became an acceptable one.”
Hutchinson also discussed her diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer in July 2021, which, like everything else in her life, even had a travel angle to it. After undergoing lumpectomy surgery that September, tissue from her breast was sent to the US to test for the likelihood of the cancer recurrence.
“A piece of my tissue went on its jolly way to California, no one else was going to California [because of the travel restrictions]. But a piece of me was. I was out there, even in the pandemic!” The test showed that she had a high recurrence risk, which prompted Hutchinson to undergo three rounds of adjuvant chemotherapy to lower the chances of the cancer returning.
“Luckily, compared to a lot of people, my cancer was treatable,” she said, before recalling how she rang the bell in the ward – a popular tradition for patients finishing chemotherapy treatment – to symbolise the end of such a difficult chapter: “I used to go out raving on New Year’s Eve, but those were different kinds of bells I heard ringing in my ears!”
Alongside Hutchinson’s candid podcast, Atkinson and Maguire have released episodes with a range of business people and entrepreneurs, including Angela Luger, FTSE 250 CEO; Rory O’Hare, a high-flying partner with Primas Law; and Derry Green, whose pandemic-bred business The Secret Garden Glamping went on to gain him the backing of Deborah Meaden when he appeared on Dragon’s Den.
