ISLE of Wight television producer and screenwriter Dominic Minghella spoke poignantly on ITV about how his coronavirus condition became so grave, he wrote farewell letters to his two children.

Dominic — brother to former IW High Sheriff, Gioia Minghella, and the late Oscar-winning film director, Anthony Minghella — was released from London's King's College Hospital last week after he overcame the disease.

How the County Press broke the news of Dominic's illness last week

Now recovering at his home in South East London, Dominic, who created ITV's smash hit series Doc Martin, and wrote BBC's Robin Hood family drama, had been rushed by ambulance to hospital after trying to cope with the Covid-19 symptoms for nine days.

He told ITV news on Monday: "I'm doing pretty well. I'm glad to be alive.

"I'm a little bit breathy, but well on the mend and I feel really, really lucky to be at home.

"It's an extraordinary feeling being presumably clean and immune."

"Early on, my symptoms were really mild. I wasn't even sure I had the virus at all. My kids were still at school at that point.

"I had a very mild temperature — a bit of chills and no cough — but the temperature was not high enough to count as a fever, so I was feeling below par.

"It wasn't until the end of the first week — day seven, eight, nine — that I knew I had a problem.

"I had tried to bury my symptoms and eventually I couldn't deal with them anymore.

"I called an ambulance straight away. They came quickly. Being taken to hospital wasn't a nice moment."

Dominic was put in the ward everyone dreads to be on — the corona ward — with the Covid-19 patients.

His condition had deteriorated so much and so quickly, a point came when he felt the urgency to write farewell letters to his two children.

"It is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy," explained Dominic.

"There a point — a rather chilling moment — when I realised the doctors couldn't comfort me and that I actually might be staring at the abyss.

"I guess they didn't know at what stage of deterioration my lungs were at — whether I needed pressurised oxygen or incubation.

"So I thought I've got to write to my 11 year old and 15 year old. That's as much as I could achieve — to say some kind of goodbye."

But Dominic recovered and has paid tribute to the NHS staff who nursed him back to much better health.

"The staff were amazing. You could see there was fear — and who could blame them?

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"You could see they were frightened and knackered, stuck behind their hot masks.

"They know it's only going to get worse, so you have to be beyond grateful to the heroes who look after us."