"I’m less worried about moving on up"

Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Adventure is a light and likeable BBC series that sees the man tipped to take the lead presenter role at News at Ten and co-host general election coverage with Laura Kuenssberg visiting his parents’ homeland of Jamaica, riding pillion with Che Guevara’s son in Cuba where Myrie’s grandfather emigrated, learning how to dance with true swag, and much more. He explores his roots the fun way.

Myrie, aged 59, joined the BBC as a trainee in 1987 before making his name as a foreign correspondent covering war, natural disasters and mainstream politics in more than 90 countries. He was shot at in Iraq and escaped with a dislocated shoulder when his car somersaulted four times in Ukraine in 2022. His reporting is known for its integrity, depth and humanity. For the past 15 years, he has also presented the news.

Last July he was presenting the flagship News at Ten when it was revealed that Huw Edwards, the show’s chief anchor for 20 years, was the BBC presenter at the centre of allegations about paying a young person for sexually explicit photos. For viewers, it was perhaps the most unlikely and surreal episode in the distinguished show’s 24-year history.

Today, Myrie is the personification of the modern news presenter as multi-faceted personality. He hosts Mastermind, guest chairs Have I Got News for You, will present the Proms again this summer, and is now following up last year’s Italian Roadtrip with his Caribbean Adventure.

When he started out as a journalist, did he have any idea that he could combine heavyweight reporting with being an all-round entertainer? Not at all, he says, journalism was a very different beast back then.

“People can get their news from anywhere now. The idea that the bulletin at the end of the day is the bulletin of record is beginning to disappear, and I think the public want more of a relationship with their presenters. It’s less this idea that you’re handing down tablets of stone from on high – now we’re actually having a conversation.” For viewers, anchors have become more a family friend than a figure of authority.

My abuse online is more acidic than it was ten years ago

This, for Myrie, has opened up the world of broadcasting hugely. In the past it was thought inappropriate, or confusing, for news anchors to front other shows, but now it is de rigueur for them to have quiz, travel or culture shows. Or, in the case of Myrie, all three. And as far as he’s concerned, the better the viewer knows the presenter, the stronger the bond. “If you’ve got a sense of what I might be reading or what I listen to, I think it might cement a relationship when it comes to you trusting me when I’m coming out with this stuff about Rishi Sunak’s latest travails or what’s happening in Gaza.”

Myrie grew up in Bolton, Lancashire. His parents had left his three older siblings in Jamaica with their grandparents when they emigrated here as part of the Windrush generation; they became British citizens under the British Nationality Act and Myrie was born in England, as were his three younger siblings.

In 2023, Myrie said he felt “angry and also ashamed of my own country” after the Windrush scandal, which affected his older brothers Peter and Lionel, despite them having lived here since 1973. Both had entered the country on their parents’ passports as children and the Government had destroyed their landing card slips. Peter, who had prostate cancer, wanted to take his daughter to see Jamaica, but was unable to because he would not have been permitted to return on his Jamaican passport. He died before getting either a British passport or compensation. Lionel was denied benefits and healthcare, and has still not received compensation. Myrie has also detailed the racism he has faced throughout his career. In 2019, far-right extremist Ian Hargreaves was jailed after racially motivated threats culminated in him threatening to shoot Myrie.

In 2020, Myrie said the abuse had become “more prevalent in the last few years”. Is that still the case? “On a personal level, I think there’s more cover for racists to come out these days because they can do it online, make up a handle and have a false name and just blurt out their bile. As a result, I think it’s more pervasive. Certainly my postbag with abuse, or on Twitter [now X] or whatever, is a little bit more acidic and arch than it would have been ten to 15 years ago. Sad losers used to wind me up; now I just think they’re sad losers.”

Myrie spent ten weeks in the Caribbean filming the series. Did it teach him anything about himself? “What surprised me was how Caribbean I am. I am a proud Englishman, I’ll be there waving the flag of Saint George during the Euros. I am a Brit to the core. But at the same time, I’m Afro-Caribbean. My roots are in the Caribbean. And I realise going back there, that this part of my personality goes beyond supporting the West Indies and failing Norman Tebbit’s cricket test [in 1990, Conservative MP Norman Tebbit suggested that immigrants could not be loyal to Britain without supporting the England cricket team]. There’s actually something deeper than that in the rhythms of the Caribbean, in the whole atmosphere and attitude. I realised there is a lot more of that in me than I thought.”

This trip – he only visited Jamaica once as a child – seems to have had a profound impact. Has it changed him? “I’m a little bit more relaxed about life. Less concerned about trying to move on up. I’m 60 this year, and I think I’ve probably just realised there’s more to life than trying to get to the front of the queue of stuff. That’s probably a product of age, but it might also be seeing a slightly slower pace of life in the Caribbean. I think that Caribbean sensibility has always been there, and it’s just bubbled up a bit more to the surface.”

I tell him I’ve read that Myrie’s father has also returned to Jamaica. He laughs. “Ah. Don’t believe Wikipedia, man!” His father lives in Derbyshire, a couple of roads away from Myrie’s mother. His parents, who are divorced, never wanted him to be a journalist. They hoped he’d be a lawyer. And he looked as if he was going to fulfil their ambitions for him. He studied law at Sussex University and had a place at London’s Middle Temple to train as a barrister, but opted for the BBC’s training course instead.

Myrie first got the journalism bug as a paper boy, realising that newspapers were a window into a wider world. He watched Alan Whicker’s travel shows on TV and wanted a bit of it for himself. But it didn’t seem possible. Whicker was white, suave and looked so different from him. And then he saw Trevor McDonald, ITN’s black news presenter, and realised it was possible after all.

Myrie has endured many hairy moments as a war reporter; he says that at times he didn’t tell his mother where he was because he knew it would make her anxious. How did you pull that off when you were on the telly, I ask. Another roar. “Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa! I know! I hope Mum’s out making a cup of tea when I pop up! You do what you can, man!” Was she right to be worried? “Yeah, if she loves me. Worried that some Iraqi might shoot my head off. But it’s a calculated risk you take. Over time, my wife [Catherine, an upholsterer and furniture restorer] has become, not inured to it, but she knows I’m not going to do anything stupid. So you’re taking a calculated risk and my parents sort of know that. But at the same time, they’d still rather I was a barrister.”

So many war reporters have suffered from PTSD. Has he? “I haven’t been diagnosed with PTSD,” he says, a little uncertainly. “I haven’t been in a position where I have been unable to function because of a past experience or a trauma, and I think that is the definition of PTSD. Do images come back to me of situations I’ve been in? Absolutely.” Many war reporters seem to become addicted to danger zones. Was he ever in danger of that? “There is a fascination for the perils of danger, particularly when you’re younger, that some war correspondents have. I certainly had that to a degree.”

What image returns most frequently? “The most immediate one is a woman I came across in Borneo. In 2003 I was covering the periodic flare-up of violence between the Madurese and the Dayaks, who chopped people’s heads off – they’re the original headhunters of Borneo. I met a woman whose whole family had been decapitated – sons, daughters, parents, grandparents, slaughtered. Headless bodies. She was nine months pregnant, in floods of tears. She had nobody, and she had this child. It was awful. When you think about dead people, they’re dead, if you know what I mean – their suffering is over. It’s the living who are suffering who make me choke up. I’ll never forget her face. To this day, 20 years on, I wonder about that child in her belly. Has it grown up? How is it doing?”

In 2009, Myrie came off the road to become an anchor. What’s the best thing about presenting the news? “When they first asked me if I wanted to be a presenter, I said no. I said, ‘That’s boring, I like running around the world, I’m enjoying it.’ But for various reasons I ended up presenting on the BBC News channel.” What’s more, he says, he loved it. He talks about being in a position of trust; a conduit between what’s happening in the world and people receiving that news in their living room.

It's weird reporting on your colleagues in the newsroom

I ask him about the night he presented News at Ten last year, when Huw Edwards was the main story. It was so discombobulating for viewers, I say, what was it like for you? “When you end up doing a story that involves you reporting on your colleagues, it’s weird. That’s actually the best description. It’s just weird. Because you’re not usually there to be talking about the staff in your newsroom. So it’s not just Huw. It’s Frank Gardner getting shot in Saudi Arabia, it’s all kinds of stuff. Another classic example is – I was the guy who announced the pay bands when BBC pay was revealed.” And did he make the highest salary band? “Nooooo!”

In April, it was announced that Edwards had resigned from the BBC. So it appears that there is a vacancy for the chief anchor on News at Ten, currently being shared by Myrie and a number of others. I’m thinking of what he said earlier about no longer being so concerned about moving on up. Does he want the top job? He smiles. “Look, what I’m doing now is brilliant. I’m loving it. It’s amazing to be invited into people’s homes at 10pm. It’s also amazing to be invited into people’s homes because they love classical music. It’s amazing to go travelling and paint a picture of this wonderful part of the world called the Caribbean. What I have is a combination of activities and work and interests that is superb, so I am absolutely happy doing what I’m doing. That’s all I can say.” He grins.

Clive Myrie, I’ll ask one more time – would you like the top job? “Ha-ha-ha-haaaaa! I’m incredibly pleased with what I’ve got. And given that my parents were convinced that I’d made a big old mess of my career choice, they’re now very proud of me.” And for Myrie, that seems more than enough.