From a council estate in East London, the son of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, BBC London’s Eddie Nestor talks Hackney hipsters, Windrush, tracing his African roots, hanging out with Idris Elba, getting accosted in a dark alley in Thailand and – in his own words ‘being the first black guy to do a Persil ad in South Africa’. Covering Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, Dominica, St Lucia, The Gambia. Ghana, Thailand, Goa, British Colonialism, racism, DNA tests, Brexit, football, why he won’t visit America and much more in Eddie’s wonderful dulcet tones. 

On this episode we discuss:

Idris Elba

Growing up in Hackney

East London’s Jews, Huguenots and Bangladeshis

The Kingsland Estate and how no-one wanted to live there

The pros and cons of hipsters and gentrification

How his MBE led to ancestry discoveries

His family coming from Dominica in the Caribbean

The Windrush generation

How Africans are not indigenous to the Caribbean

His ancestors coming from Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana

The difference between Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean culture

Playing country and western at his mum’s wedding in St Lucia

The music his parents played growing up – Jim Reeves, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Elvis

Growing up in relative poverty on a council estate but not feeling poor

Taking luxuries for granted

Strict Afro-Caribbean parents!

Feeling jealous of his loving mum

Wanting to spend proper time with his children

How younger people would rather go to an automatic cash register

His first trip abroad – in 1973/4.

The confusion about why people would go on holiday!

Lennox Lewis mum sending him from West Ham to Canada

How travel is an amazing thing

The arrogance of the British and Londoners

British Colonialism and Brexit

How tiny Britain is punching above its weight compared to Russia, France, Australia and more

The great expanse of America – why Americans don’t need to travel

Europeans being ‘more wordly’ than Americans

Having never been to America!

Loving the British Isles despite the weather

Thomas Cook’s profits being down due to the heatwave

Budget airlines being ‘interesting’

Getting married in Goa, hippies and beaches and ‘pretend India’

Not wanting to take the same precautions as he does in London

Thailand with his wife Lisa, dancing on bars

How cancer – Hodgkin’s Lymphoma changed his life

How facing death ‘almost made me a decent person’

Nipping down a back alley in Thailand got him in a serious situation

Racism when travelling and the reason he doesn’t want to go to America

Liking the idea of San Francisco, South Beach and Atlanta but not New York

How people see holidaymakers with money in the developing world

Finding a local guide or helper when away

Giving away his trainers in The Gambia

Jamaica, Tanzania

Climbing Kilimanjaro and not throwing his wife off

How his wife’s panic attack on the mountain saved his marriage

How travel has the power to change relationships

Eating, drinking and talkative people on holiday (is he talking directly to me here…?)

Raising £100,000 for a project in Ghana

Egypt and the Red Sea

Being the first black guy to do a Persil ad in South Africa

Linford Christie

Cape Town and the townships

Brexit meaning higher bills

The Spanish thinking we are mad for Brexit

How the EU can’t make it too attractive to leave

How Brexit and the weak pound might change travel

Swapping contact details for Idris Elba and Femi Oluwole

Filming Death In Paradise in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean

August Wilson and Roger Simmons

Guadeloupe having the Euro and everyone speaking French

Baywatch (yes, that one)

Being a Manchester United fan

Brighton and Hove Albion and football season tickets when you have a family

Researching his African roots and finding a great grandmother in 1880

The fascinating insight DNA tests give you

The prolific breeding of the Irish and Jewish

Fiji, Indentured Labour and slavery

How Indians have Melanesian blood

The BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are and the work that goes into it

How we need to send Eddie to America for a BBC series

The Trump Slump in tourism to the USA

Not looking forward to holidaying with his young children.

Looking forward to Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali, the Maldives and any ‘Asian zen’

The joys of getting lost in bars abroad

Daily massages on the beach in Thailand

Trashing the studio as he reaches for his Bose headphones

Bob Marley on the beach in Jamaica is everything.