Carol Vorderman pays emotional tribute to late mum Jean with smiling picture ahead of Mother’s Day

, Carol revealed she felt suicidal due to the effect on her mental health of the menopause, which normally affects women in their 50s.

The mum of two said: "I wouldn’t have done anything because I have kids and I am a single parent, but I definitely had a lot of thoughts that were in that bracket.

"I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted this blackness to stop and I couldn’t think of any way of making it stop other than just stopping."

She revealed to the magazine that she subsequently saw a menopausal depression expert who prescribed her daily bioidentical hormones to boost her oestrogen levels.

The former Countdown star also spoke candidly about the events that preceded the death of her mother Jean, who passed away aged 88 last June.

Explaining that her mother hadn't been feeling very well, she said: "Three days later, she was in a lot of pain, so I rushed her to the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

"She had tests on the Sunday and on the Monday she was told she had terminal cancer.

"They said, 'It’s everywhere. What do you want to do?'"

Carol said her mum decided she didn't want to have chemotherapy having already fought cancer three times.

She explained: "Bearing in mind she was almost 89, Mum said, 'I don’t want to go through that, just keep me out of pain.'