BBC star Clive Myrie sends six-word message to Huw Edwards after scandal

A familiar face to millions, as a BBC newsreader and the host of Mastermind, his latest venture takes him on a personal voyage of discovery across the Atlantic.

Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Adventure sees him cruise around Cuba in a vintage blue 1959 Chevrolet and dance to the rhythms
of Jamaica’s thriving nightlife, from where his parents emigrated on the Windrush.

He will also visit the lush landscapes of the Dominican Republic and the beach paradise of Barbados.

The 15-part series follows his successful Italian road trip last year, and he reveals the BBC jumped at his suggestion for another travelogue, this time exploring four Caribbean islands.

He says: “It has given me an opportunity to find out a little bit more about my background and my history through the eyes of my family.

“At the same time, I’m getting across to the public just how wonderful this part of the world is – if they haven’t already been.

“And for those people who have been, they love it anyway! There’s plenty for everybody.”

The series, which started last week, runs for a further two weeks each evening on BBC2.

Clive unearths his ancestral roots in Jamaica where he meets up with his older sister Judith, who has recently retired to the island. He films with her on a coffee farm.

Asked if he would retire there, he says: “Who knows? Portland, where Judith lives, is beautiful and one of the most untouched parts of Jamaica.

“It’s where Ian Fleming wrote James Bond at his home Goldeneye. Maybe a little holiday home there might be rather nice.

“It’s funny, my wife Catherine said to me that I’ve become more Caribbean as I’ve got older.

“I suppose I am connecting more with that part of my heritage. There wasn’t that much pulling me back before, but now my sister is there – and a free holiday...”

While the broadcaster turns 60 in August, he feigns ignorance when the milestone is mentioned.

He laughs: “I don’t want any big celebration – just a nice dinner with friends. But it’s good to look back. I feel as if I have managed to achieve a lot of what I wanted to achieve in my life.

“There’s still a long time to go – one hopes – and lots more experiences and stories to tell.”

His deeply personal memoir Everything is Everything: A Memoir of Love, Hate and Hope, is out in paperback.

In it he tells of his pride in his roots, but also his determination not to be defined by his background and to succeed at the highest level.

With fame comes celebrity, but Clive is embracing public recognition: “If people are appreciative of my work and like what I do, that’s great. It’s the whole point of why I do it.”

While his career has reached new heights, being in the public eye has brought racist trolling and death threats: “It’s not everyday at all. It’s sporadic. There are people out there who want to abuse, and I have nothing but pity for them.

“All sense of anger and hurt I might have had when I was younger. But now it’s just, Get a life.”

He shrugs: “Not everyone likes what you do, but you have to take the rough with the smooth. What I do is public facing. People see it.”

Fourth eldest in a family of seven children, his parents settled in Bolton, Lancashire, when they emigrated in the 1960s, to give their children an education and “a better chance of life”.

He muses: “I have a core of self belief that I am worth something, and worthy, and that comes from a stable childhood and parents that have instilled those ideas into me. They are my biggest cheerleaders.” He said he is delighted that his parents Norris and Lynne feature as narrators in the Jamaican episode in his latest series.

“We spend time in the little town where my mum and dad grew up. My mum was a teacher so I go to her old school and meet one of her former pupils who told me how stern she was about English grammar. It didn’t surprise me.”

His Irish wife Catherine, an upholsterer and restorer of furniture, also speaks but is not seen in the series. He grins: “I’ve managed to rope my mum, dad and my wife into this whole thing – even though they are back in the UK.

“Catherine didn’t join me. They are long days of shooting. It might look like a jolly, but it ain’t.”

More reserved than her outgoing husband, I tell him she looks very beautiful from photos. “We’re a handsome couple!” he teases. He has previously described Catherine, a former teacher who he met at a book launch and married at a Catholic church in Covent Garden in 1998, as “his best friend”.

While he credits having the same interests and outlook on life as being key for a happy marriage, Clive adds that the time they spend apart due to work commitments has also strengthened it.

He says: “Sometimes it’s better to have that break from time to time so you come back re-focused and re-energised.”

The journalist started at the BBC in the 1980s after studying law at Sussex University.

He has worked as one of their foreign correspondents for 28 years, reporting from danger zones all over the world.

Close to his BBC colleagues, I ask if he misses fellow anchorman Huw Edwards, who worked
for the corporation for 40 years and resigned in April almost a year after being suspended over the scandal around payment for sexually explicit images. He reflects: “Well I mean it’s very sad what happened and I hope he is doing okay.”

Away from the spotlight he lives a quiet life with Catherine – the couple do not have children – and he speaks to me from his home in north London, a stone’s throw from Emirates Stadium, the home of Arsenal Football Club.

However, he is well known for being a die-hard Manchester City fan.

Clive has a fitness routine, regularly going to the gym, swimming and doing yoga.

He insists: “As I get older and the joints get stiffer it’s really beneficial. Stretching exercises help when I’m sitting in the studio or the newsroom for long periods.”

And if this latest series is another success he hopes there will be more adventures.

He adds: “I hope viewers take away a piece of sunshine from the Caribbean. It’s a really joyful show and one I’m really proud of.

“I had a paper round when I was a kid and I used to read the product I was delivering, and that gave me a sense of a whole big world out there beyond Bolton. I wanted to travel and see that world and I’m so lucky that I have.”

● Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Adventure, BBC2, daily, 6.30pm. All 15 episodes are available to watch on BBC iPlayer.