Over his 36-year career, BBC journalist Clive Myrie has reported everywhere from Washington to Singapore, Iraq and Afghanistan. The 59-year-old has presented news bulletins since 2009 and is a regular anchor of BBC News at Ten. He also hosts the legendary quiz show, Mastermind
NOT TALKING FOR THE FIRST FEW WEEKS OF PRE-SCHOOL. I WAS INCREDIBLY SHY. The only person I’d really interacted with was my mum, Lynne. My dad, Norris, would be at work all day, often on building sites in Bolton, where we lived. Then he’d come home and I’d already be in bed asleep.
The teachers were very worried about me, but Mum told them to give me time. Eventually, I uttered my first words: “My mum has lions and tigers in the house!”. The teachers were even more worried about me, though I was actually talking about the ornaments on our mantlepiece.
I started to enjoy things like reading aloud in lessons and basically haven’t really stopped talking since.
MY MUM FELT HAPPY MAKING THINGS. She had been a teacher in Jamaica before she and my father emigrated to Britain in the early Sixties. Then I was born, and finding time for childcare and getting her British teaching qualifications was too difficult, so she fell back on dress making. She was a wonderful seamstress and so content while she was creating. She loved making wonderful Jamaican food for us to enjoy, too.
SUDDENLY BEING PART OF A CROWDED HOUSE. My little brother Garfield was born, and then, when I was about six, my older sister, Judith, and half-brothers, Lionel and Peter, came over from Jamaica, where they’d been living with grandparents.
I didn’t mind, though. They all seemed to me to fit right into our family. But it was hard for them. Lionel and Peter were in their early teens and my father was stricter than what they were used to. There were shouting matches with him.
My siblings also had to adjust to the industrial grey northern landscape of Bolton. Judith, who was seven, didn’t know much about the current pop groups and the two boys preferred cricket to football. They spoke in Jamaican patois, too, which definitely would have been quite alienating for them in a Lancashire school.
Later, my mum had two more girls, Sonia and Lorna, so there were seven of us. You had to make your voice heard.
MY DAD INSISTED WE ALL WATCH THE NEWS. But he thought BBC News was a bit snooty so we sat down in front of ITV. I grew up with ITN reporters like Gerald Seymour and presenters such as Reginald Bosanquet—I
