Too old to be a new mum

"Life isn't meant to be easy, I know that," muses Caroline Quentin, "but I'm not one to allow things to get the better of me." Quentin, more than most people, speaks with some authority. A teenager when her parents' volatile marriage broke up, she herself had an acrimonious split from former husband Paul Merton and has also suffered the ordeal of two miscarriages.

And yet, although notoriously secretive about her private life, she seems far more relaxed today than her reputation suggests. She is good humoured and chatty, with a habit of dovetailing all her replies with the word "darling".

Quentin is, in fact, blissfully happy. Her eyes shine when she refers to her partner of five years, Sam Farmer, their daughter, Emily, four, and nine-month-old William. "It's fantastic that at 43 I've got this wonderful family," she says. "I'd love to have another baby if only I was six years younger.

"I do still have that yearning," she continues, wistfully, "but not the energy levels. I guess I'm too old now, but I am so happy."

But her contentment has come at a high price. Aside from the miscarriages - "I felt so desolate, so vulnerable," she said afterwards - she was defrauded of more than £400,000 in earnings that her former agent failed to pass on to her. This, it turned out, was nothing compared to the collapse of her seven-year marriage to Merton, whom she met at the Comedy Store and who, in 1997, left her for Sarah Parkinson, her understudy in The Live Bed Show.

Reporters camped for weeks outside their home. "You are under siege. All you want to do is put a paper bag over your head and lie down for six months," she recalls.

"I was 36. I had a career but I never thought I'd meet anyone else or have a family. It is so completely unexpected to have all of this, and that makes it very special."

Memories of the darkest days after Merton left must have flooded back when she started work on the new ITV1 series Life Begins, in which she plays a mother-of-two, about to turn 40, who has to take control of her life after her husband walks out.

"It's very different to my circumstances," she says, quickly. "I'd only been in a short marriage and I didn't have children. I recognise Maggie, the role I play, but I don't think I'm like her. She hasn't noticed what is going on around her. I hope I wouldn't be so blind."

The youngest of four girls, Quentin had to leave school when her father walked out and her mother had a stroke, leaving her temporarily unable to look after herself. Instead of going on to study dance as planned, Caroline went out to work, doing odd jobs on film sets.

"I paid our bills and when I didn't earn, we struggled. It made me resilient. It made me learn not to take myself too seriously and realise that it is better to move on, rather than wallow in misery."

And move on she has. Since starring as Dorothy in Men Behaving Badly, Quentin has appeared in such popular series as Jonathan Creek, Kiss Me Kate and Blue Murder. She is no stranger to making headlines, but even she was taken aback by reports which labelled Sam, 11 years her junior, a "toy boy" and "gold-digger".

"Sam was a runner when I met him, which is about as menial a job as TV has to offer," she says. "People wrote about this as if it was going to be a problem and they were wrong. I fell in love with a man, not a job title."

Although they aren't married, having one failed marriage behind her has not put Quentin off the idea altogether. "Oh we talk about it and every time we get close, I get pregnant! We already have a commitment to each other with our children. I couldn't be happier."

With that in mind, she plans to take five months off work this year to spend more time with her family. "My children are only going to be young once and they need me. You start to wonder what it has all been for if you don't take some time out," she says. "I'm just so bloody grateful to be here. I've really landed on my feet."