On The Road: Anneka Rice Louise Flind
Anneka Rice was hooked on jeopardy, she tells Louise Flind, before too much adventurous travel led to a 15-year sabbatical
Is there anything you can’t leave home without? No, having had decades travelling for work, feeling sick with homesickness, I always travel incredibly lightly.
Something you really miss? My bed. A hotelier friend left me, in his will, bedding for our entire house. Such a good idea – I’m going to put that in my will immediately.
Favourite destination? The Isle of Wight.
Earliest childhood holiday memories? The Isle of Wight. My Dad would pack up the battered old Zephyr car – my brother and I would sit in the back seat and Dad would light his first cigarette as we drove out of the drive. Three hours later, we’d limp into Portsmouth to get the ferry at which stage my eyes were streaming with all the smoke – I couldn’t even see the front seat.
Are you a traveller? It’s in me. It started when I worked for the World Service on my BBC training course. One of my first placements was on ‘The World Today’, booking stringers, with the thrill of hearing ‘Hello, this is Mark Tully in Delhi’.
Are you adventurous? Yes, very adventurous. Actually, jeopardy is the word that I use.
Has any of that changed as you’ve got older? At one point, I was working on ‘Wish You Were Here…?’ for ITV and a holiday programme for the BBC. I hated doing it because I couldn’t bear to be away from my three small boys. I once went to Australia twice in a week, such was my desperation to get home in between. In the end, the jeopardy and the travel were bringing me down – so I took a sabbatical, and disappeared for 15 years. Were Challenge Anneka or Treasure Hunt ever filmed abroad? When I was a Thames Television reporter, someone suggested, as a laugh, that I audition for this thing involving a helicopter. I got the job and filmed the first series in Bali, the second in Singapore, and it was a complete shock when it was transmitted – because I was on the front of every paper. With ‘Challenge Anneka’, we did a project in a Malawi refugee camp and a Romanian orphanage.
What was your hairiest moment abroad for television? With ‘Challenge Anneka’, we went to Croatia where we all feared for our lives – it was just after the war. We were protected by the UN but aware there were snipers looking at us – we all wrote letters home just in case we didn’t make it. My sons and I went to Croatia in 2017 and I could hardly explain to them how different it had been in the 1990s.
What are you up to at the moment? I do a regular Radio 2 programme and arts programmes for them. Everything I do is generated from painting. Ronnie Wood got in touch because he’d seen my paintings online, and I ended up making a really nice two-hour documentary about him, his paintings and music.
Do you work on a plane/train/helicopter? I used to do singing practice in the helicopter, because I was in a pantomime. It’s so noisy that I could sit in the back seat bellowing while everyone else had their headsets on.
Where did you go on your honeymoon? Nick and I drove round France. I was quite pregnant – so it wasn’t really action-packed.
Do you like being/working away from home? I’m fine now I don’t feel I’m on the end of the umbilical cord.
Do you have a daily routine, even away? I’m a mad keen swimmer. So I seek out water, preferably the sea. I love walking and trekking, and I always carry a sketchpad, watercolours and some inks.
Are you brave with different food abroad? Love food. With ‘Wish You Were Here…?’ in the 1980s, I was trekking round China. We used to film a lot of street food and the sound guy was always saying, ‘Dog – that’s dog.’ None of us could eat very much because we didn’t trust what we were eating. Luckily, one of the cameramen had bought out some tins of Spam – he gave me the key from the Spam tin which I wore round my neck. I was so grateful for that Spam.
Strangest thing you’ve ever eaten? Spam in China.
Do you like coming home? Love coming home. I had quite a turbulent childhood – so all I ever wanted was my own house and I felt safe once I’d got that.
Anneka Rice is supporting the Marie Curie Great Daffodil Appeal; www. mariecurie.org.uk/daffodil