'Very few people scare me'

He is understandably happy with his healthy freelance status, but it soon becomes clear that the biggest buzz he has gained from all this work is being able to cock a snook at the GMTV bigwigs whom, he claims, thought he would never work again when he left the show last April.

''There's a lot of jealousy in what I do. People like you to have success, but not too much,'' says Eamonn, 46, who was with GMTV for 12 years.

Now all the quibbles, from his famous spat with Anthea Turner to his disillusionment with GMTV, marriage break-up and subsequent hounding by the press, are featured in his autobiography, This Is My Life.

He readily admits that part of his motive for writing it was to stick two fingers up at the GMTV executives who felt Eamonn became too big for his boots - and for the show.

He has moved on in body, to the state-of-the-art edifice of Sky TV in west London, where he presents its early morning news show, Sunrise. But his mind still harks back to GMTV.

''I don't miss GMTV because the programme was lacking in purpose, direction, belief and ambition,'' he writes, adding the station had become little more than a shopping channel by the time he left. ''There were people who were rubbing their hands with glee, saying that was the end of my career, so it's been very, very satisfying to prove them wrong.''

He says they attempted to downgrade his profile and humiliate him, most memorably removing him from the front of GMTV's tenth anniversary official picture to the back.

When asked if he was miffed by that event, he looks like he's going to blow a fuse.

'I wasn't miffed, I was badly hurt,'' he declares. ''Miffed? Miffed? Miffed? I launched the station. I was there longer than anybody else. I think the word I was looking for was a bit of respect. Miffed is an insulting thing to say. I am the longest serving breakfast presenter in Britain and continue to be so.''

So he is still bitter, then?

''Well, if someone's trying to take your livelihood away, forgive me for being bitter,'' he says curtly.

Today, he is wary of people in the industry and of the many journalists who hounded him over his private life when his marriage to childhood sweetheart Gabrielle, the mother of three of his children, Declan, Rebecca and Niall, crumbled.

For years he would commute from the London studio to the family home in Belfast at weekends, but he says that Gabrielle drifted away from him and he doesn't know what he could have done to salvage the relationship.

While he and Gabrielle were separated for nine years, they still lived under the same roof (he slept on the sofa) for a time and his children were unaware of any problems. He says that as the children got older they became more aware, although his explanation is vague.

So what happened when TV presenter Ruth Langsford, with whom he now has a son, Jack, came into his life?

''It seemed to be the biggest scandal ever, our phones were tapped, we were followed and all sorts of things, just because I wouldn't explain to people what was going on. That's because I didn't know what was going on. I didn't want my children to read, 'Here's Eamonn's latest girlfriend'.''

His children weren't aware of his relationship with Ruth until he was sure it was going to last, he says now.

''They were very accepting of Ruth. They were less accepting when Ruth was expecting Jack. I was taken aback because they were shocked and quiet about it. As children I suppose they wondered if it was going to affect how special they were.

''Gabrielle took them aside and said, 'This is not a baby instead of you, it's a baby as well as you'.''

Although he has been with Ruth for seven years, he and Gabrielle didn't divorce until last year. ''I had never sought to end my marriage," he said. "That was an important statement to my children.''

It seems a little strange that Gabrielle didn't divorce Eamonn until he had a new partner with whom he had a child.

All he will say is: ''I have a fantastic relationship with my (ex) wife. The awful term used is 'amicable'. I'm friendly with my wife to the point where people want it to be wrong. We have a lovely family and Gabrielle will always be part of that because we have three children together.

''I'm back and forward all the time - I've been to Belfast three times in the last seven days.''

He may eventually return to his beloved Belfast to live.

''Everybody's got their own place over there,'' he points out. ''I've worked so hard to make it right. Gabrielle's got her own place, I've got my own place and we've got our own place over here (he and Ruth live in Surrey).''

The two women have met and get on well, he says, although they'll never be friends.

''Gabrielle is a very placid person. I have a huge respect for her and we don't have any difficulties at all and Ruth sees that situation. They don't have to socialise together, but they certainly see each other and will be at functions together, like birthday parties.

''Some people may look at that and think that's a strange set-up. I look at it and think I'm very blessed. I've worked hard making that happen, despite the best efforts of a lot of the press to portray that as weird.''

But they don't all go on holiday together or anything like that, he smiles. ''We're friendly but not freaky.''

Marriage to Ruth isn't out of the question but it's not imminent either, he says. ''I've done it once and I thought it was forever so it doesn't hold the same allure for me.''

Eamonn, the son of a carpet fitter, grew up in Belfast and was no stranger to danger during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

''The person I am today has been moulded by being a child of the Troubles, when you had to live on your wits and in fear of your life. It made me quite streetwise, questioning, and I've seen too many dangerous situations to make me scared in my working life. Very few people scare me.''

There is an inherent fear of being out of work, though, he admits.

''It comes from watching how hard my father had to work and how money was a worry at home. My father had to pay £99 a year for my school fees, which was a gargantuan task. I can remember dad wondering how he was going to get this money. Do you know how he did it? He worked harder.''

* This Is My Life, by Eamonn Holmes, (Orion £17.99). Available now.