Marcio Gomes’s unborn child was the youngest victim of the Grenfell Tower fire – so why has no one been held to account?
Add Grenfell: Uncovered to your watchlist For ten years, their flat on the 21st floor of Grenfell Tower was a contented home for Marcio Gomes, his wife Andreia and their two daughters, Luana and Megan. “We had a lovely family life,” the 46-year-old civil servant says. “We loved each other greatly. Grenfell was a really happy place for us.” That all changed in the small hours of 14 June 2017, when a fire broke out on the fourth floor of the west London tower block and Marcio became the father of the youngest victim of the blaze that killed 72 people, 18 of them children. With no one yet brought to book over a tragedy that has become a byword for regulatory failure and corporate greed, Marcio is among those sharing his story in the Netflix documentary Grenfell: Uncovered. His decision to speak is in part fuelled by his anger at that lack of accountability. “Manufacturers and organisations let Grenfell happen,” Marcio says. “This was an avoidable tragedy, and people need to be held accountable. It’s important to keep this in the news in whatever way we can.” Marcio and Andreia moved into Grenfell with their then infant daughters in April 2007. “I was there for ten years, but most people were there for 20 or 30,” he says. On the night their lives changed for ever, Luana and Megan were 12 and ten years old, and Andreia was seven months pregnant with their third child, a boy. The excited family had already named him Logan. They had been out for dinner and were asleep when Marcio was awakened in the small hours by a neighbour banging on the door to say there was a fire in one of the flats below. Looking out of the window and seeing only the lights of the fire engines on the scene, he assumed that everything was contained. “I didn’t feel in danger at all,” he says. That feeling didn’t last long. Marcio made increasingly frantic calls to the fire service and was told help was coming for him. “I remember opening the front door of the flat, but the smoke was extremely thick and black,” he says. More than two hours after the fire started, and with flames now raging at his windows, Marcio decided to evacuate his terrified family from the burning tower. “We left on our own just after 3am.” In the barely imaginable chaos that followed, he endeavoured to lead his heavily pregnant wife and two children down 21 flights of stairs to safety in near-pitch black and acrid smoke, but they were separated from each other on the way down. In the documentary, Luana, who also shares her story, weeps as she recalls stepping over bodies on the way. Luana collapsed on the stairs and had to be rescued by a fireman. Such was the damage to her lungs from the smoke and toxic fumes that, alongside her mother and Megan, she had to be placed in an induced coma for several days. Tragically, Logan was among those who didn’t survive. The baby was delivered stillborn by C-section while Andreia was still in a coma. “I had to break the news to her,” Marcio says, his voice choked with emotion. Their desperate grief – and their different ways of dealing with it – was one of the contributing factors to the couple’s divorce three years later. “It’s still never easy to talk about,” he says now. When Marcio’s family did leave hospital, it was to the uncertainty of temporary accommodation, first in a hotel, then an Airbnb. It took ten months for the family to find a new permanent home, although following his 2021 divorce Marcio now lives with his mother. Along with the rest of his family, Marcio has had to undergo extensive therapy to try to come to terms with what they went through. “One of the conclusions that we’ve come to is that I’m a different person now, and I need to accept that,” he says. “I’m definitely Marcio number two, if you like. My personality changed, my confidence in myself and authorities has changed, and I cannot go back to who I was.’’ Survivor’s guilt, meanwhile, remains an ongoing battle. “Why did we make it out when others didn’t?” he asks. “That includes my neighbours, right next door.” All this for a family who, like nearly everyone else in Grenfell that night, were “just people sleeping”, as the documentary’s director Olaide Sadiq puts it. “One of our contributors said that to me off screen and it stayed with me for months. Because that can be any one of us,” she says. “I hope people leave the film with a deeper understanding of what really happened.” With so many buildings still covered in the cladding that was attached to Grenfell, it’s a sentiment echoed by Marcio. “I can’t change what happened on that night to my family or anybody’s families,” he says. “But I’m hoping that speaking out could save somebody else’s family. Up and down the country, you still have hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings with similar problems.”
Grenfell survivor Marcio Gomes: 'I can't change what happened – but speaking out could save somebody else's family'
The survivor is featured in Netflix's Grenfell: Uncovered.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. For 10 years, their flat on the 21st floor of Grenfell Tower was a contented home for Marcio Gomes, his wife Andreia and their two daughters, Luana and Megan. “We had a lovely family life,” the 46-year-old civil servant says. “We loved each other greatly. Grenfell was a really happy place for us.” That all changed in the small hours of 14 June 2017, when a fire broke out on the fourth floor of the west London tower block and Marcio became the father of the youngest victim of the blaze that killed 72 people, 18 of them children. With no one yet brought to book over a tragedy that has become a byword for regulatory failure and corporate greed, Marcio is among those sharing his story in the Netflix documentary Grenfell: Uncovered. His decision to speak is in part fuelled by his anger at that lack of accountability. “Manufacturers and organisations let Grenfell happen,” Marcio says. “This was an avoidable tragedy, and people need to be held accountable. It’s important to keep this in the news in whatever way we can.” Marcio and Andreia moved into Grenfell with their then infant daughters in April 2007. “I was there for ten years, but most people were there for 20 or 30,” he says. On the night their lives changed for ever, Luana and Megan were 12 and ten years old, and Andreia was seven months pregnant with their third child, a boy. The excited family had already named him Logan. They had been out for dinner and were asleep when Marcio was awakened in the small hours by a neighbour banging on the door to say there was a fire in one of the flats below. Looking out of the window and seeing only the lights of the fire engines on the scene, he assumed that everything was contained. “I didn’t feel in danger at all,” he says. That feeling didn’t last long. Marcio made increasingly frantic calls to the fire service and was told help was coming for him. “I remember opening the front door of the flat, but the smoke was extremely thick and black,” he says. More than two hours after the fire started, and with flames now raging at his windows, Marcio decided to evacuate his terrified family from the burning tower. “We left on our own just after 3am.” In the barely imaginable chaos that followed, he endeavoured to lead his heavily pregnant wife and two children down 21 flights of stairs to safety in near-pitch black and acrid smoke, but they were separated from each other on the way down. In the documentary, Luana, who also shares her story, weeps as she recalls stepping over bodies on the way. Luana collapsed on the stairs and had to be rescued by a fireman. Such was the damage to her lungs from the smoke and toxic fumes that, alongside her mother and Megan, she had to be placed in an induced coma for several days. Tragically, Logan was among those who didn’t survive. The baby was delivered stillborn by C-section while Andreia was still in a coma. “I had to break the news to her,” Marcio says, his voice choked with emotion. Their desperate grief – and their different ways of dealing with it – was one of the contributing factors to the couple’s divorce three years later. “It’s still never easy to talk about,” he says now. When Marcio’s family did leave hospital, it was to the uncertainty of temporary accommodation, first in a hotel, then an Airbnb. It took ten months for the family to find a new permanent home, although following his 2021 divorce Marcio now lives with his mother. Along with the rest of his family, Marcio has had to undergo extensive therapy to try to come to terms with what they went through. “One of the conclusions that we’ve come to is that I’m a different person now, and I need to accept that,” he says. “I’m definitely Marcio number two, if you like. My personality changed, my confidence in myself and authorities has changed, and I cannot go back to who I was.’’ Survivor’s guilt, meanwhile, remains an ongoing battle. “Why did we make it out when others didn’t?” he asks. “That includes my neighbours, right next door.” All this for a family who, like nearly everyone else in Grenfell that night, were “just people sleeping”, as the documentary’s director Olaide Sadiq puts it. “One of our contributors said that to me off screen and it stayed with me for months. Because that can be any one of us,” she says. “I hope people leave the film with a deeper understanding of what really happened.” With so many buildings still covered in the cladding that was attached to Grenfell, it’s a sentiment echoed by Marcio. “I can’t change what happened on that night to my family or anybody’s families,” he says. “But I’m hoping that speaking out could save somebody else’s family. Up and down the country, you still have hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings with similar problems.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Grenfell: Uncovered is streaming now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch survived the Holocaust playing the cello in the women’s orchestra of Auschwitz
Add The Last Musician of Auschwitz to your watchlist As a boy, Raphael Wallfisch can recall his mother Anita Lasker-Wallfisch being asked about the digits tattooed on her arm. ‘‘She sometimes told people it was a telephone number or similar,” he recalls. “She would downplay it entirely.” At the family home in London, questions about the past from Raphael and his sister Maya were also largely batted away. “My mother believed in looking forwards, not backwards,” Raphael says. “She didn’t want to bring up her children in the shadow of what she had been through.” For Anita was a Holocaust survivor and the digits were the prisoner number she had inked on her flesh on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943 aged 18. That she escaped the gas chambers after being sent to the concentration camp was down to one thing: a gifted cellist, Anita was conscripted into the women’s orchestra of Auschwitz, who were ordered to play marches as the starving prisoners walked to and from their forced labour, as well as performing for their Nazi captors. Anita, now 99, is the only survivor of that orchestra and her story is recounted in The Last Musician of Auschwitz, a moving BBC2 documentary in which she gives living testimony to the horrors they endured. “Music was played to the most terrible things – the burning of victims,” she recalls in the programme. “You could see the people going in and coming out as smoke. And we knew it was only a matter of time before we went in there, too.” Yet Anita survived, along with her sister Renate, rescued by the British Army’s liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the camp to which they were subsequently moved, in 1945. The following year both came to London, where Anita met and married the pianist Peter Wallfisch and became a founder member of the English Chamber Orchestra. Born into a German-Jewish family in Breslau (then part of Germany, now Wroclaw in Poland), Anita recalls in the documentary, being scarcely aware of her Jewishness until the Nazis took power in 1933, when she was suddenly being spat on in the street and subjected to racial slurs. With synagogues burnt down, Jewish shops smashed and looted, and homes invaded, fear became “part of the background” and in 1942, when she was 16, her parents were deported to a camp in Poland where they were murdered, shot in the grave they had been forced to dig for themselves. Anita became involved with resistance work, forging papers to help French prisoners of war escape, determined, as she would recall, “to give the Germans a better reason for killing me” than the identity with which she had been born. “She was incredibly brave, and also physically strong,” Raphael says now. Anita had been observed by the Gestapo and, alongside Renate, was sent to Auschwitz in December 1943. She was saved from death by her musical talent, which she was asked to demonstrate after being stripped, her head shaved and her prisoner number tattooed on her arm. On one occasion, Josef Mengele, the SS officer notorious for his medical experiments on prisoners, entered Anita’s barracks and demanded a solo performance of Schumann’s Träumerei, part of his composition Kinderszenen, meaning “Scenes from Childhood”. “A great irony, considering what was happening all around,” says Raphael, himself a renowned cellist. “My mother said she just played it as quickly as possible, and didn’t look at him for one second.” Anita was under no illusions that her musical ability would save her life. “She expected to die,” Raphael says quietly. Yet she survived, along with fragments of the music the prisoners had composed in secret in the camp, some of which is performed in the documentary. It would take years before Anita felt able to talk openly about what she had been through, writing a memoir, Inherit the Truth, she intended initially as something for her children. “It is a very straightforward, clear-eyed account of what happened,” says Raphael. Those adjectives could be used to describe the brave and funny Anita herself, who enjoyed rude health until recently, when she was hospitalised after a fall. She performed in concerts until she was in her late sixties and dedicated her later years to Holocaust education. “She has always felt that humankind cannot be reminded enough times about what is possible,” says her son. Perhaps that message is more poignant with antisemitism on the rise once more. “It has made her terribly depressed,” says Raphael. He hopes that those who watch the film will once more absorb the lessons of history. “Things get forgotten so quickly,” he says. “But it’s also a reminder that despite all of this hatred and destruction, the beautiful things like art and music still remain. As my mother said, the Nazis tried to kill so many groups of people, but they couldn’t kill the music.” Raphael Wallfisch and his son, baritone Simon Wallfisch, are performing in a concert with music dedicated to Anita on Monday at 7.30pm on Radio 3
Twenty years on, the families of the victims, survivors, police and rescue workers recall the horror of the London bombings on 7/7
Add 7/7: the London Bombings to your watchlist Julie Nicholson can recall the pause at the end of the telephone line that made her realise the worry bubbling inside her was rooted in something all too real. Minutes before, in her holiday cottage in Wales, she had watched “in shock and awe’’ as TV footage showed the unfolding devastation in London, where four suicide bombers had struck at the heart of the capital’s transport network. Worried, she phoned the music publisher where her 24-year-old graduate daughter worked to see if Jenny, a “joyous’’ person with an immense zest for life, had arrived safely. “They said, ‘Oh, it’s chaos here, it’s amazing any of us managed to make it in’. And I don’t know what prompted me, but I asked whether anybody else failed to turn up that morning. There was a pause, and the voice changed. And they said, ‘Only Jenny’. That was the moment I knew this was serious.’’ It took several more agonising days for Julie, who was a priest at the time, to receive the devastating news that her daughter was one of the 52 people killed in the terrorist bombings on 7 July 2005, when three devices were detonated on the London Underground and a fourth on a bus. A further 770 people were injured. “Jenny’s life journey ended at Edgware Road Underground,” as Julie puts it now. “She was away from us and all who loved her.” Over the years, she has “spoken to friends and colleagues who had a loved one in London at that time. We were all holding our breath until we heard from that person. Most people were able to let their breath out and breathe a sigh of relief. That, tragically, didn’t happen for us.” “My hope was that Jenny knew nothing about what happened, because she didn’t like Tube travel, and she used to bury her head in a book – and I hoped that was what indeed happened.” Today, Julie’s is one of the stories told in an extraordinarily moving, four-part documentary released ahead of the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Featuring the testimony of survivors and victims’ loved ones, as well as senior police officers and rescue workers, it’s a forensic account of a day that transformed lives but also the landscape of British policing. The events are seared on the minds of everyone involved. For Julie, the endless frantic calls and texts to a number that would never respond were followed by a desperate drive to London, and hours spent in the relatives’ room at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, where those with missing loved ones had been asked to gather. “It felt like the whole world was there – people of all cultures, all races, all asking the same questions,” she says. Told that Jenny wasn’t in the hospital, Julie could only return home and wait. “Deep down I knew she’d gone, but I wouldn’t allow myself to countenance that.” Five days later, any last glimmers of hope were extinguished when the family were told that Jenny had been identified as among those who died in the explosion at Edgware Road. “We were expecting it by then, but it was as if something massive just tore through us,” Julie says. “I’ve never experienced a tsunami, but I guess that’s what it can feel like. This massive pressure comes and knocks everything out of you.” In the bewildering aftermath, Julie recalls her determination to see her daughter’s body, however grievously injured. “The coroner’s office was trying to dissuade me, because it would be something that I would never be able to get out of my head. I remember standing up firmly against that and saying, ‘Well, that’s my responsibility. This is my daughter. I am her mother, and I will take responsibility for that.’” Her voice falters as she recalls how her final act as a mother was to anoint her daughter’s body. “It was like a moment of giving birth; I couldn’t be with her at her end, but I could be with her in this way,” she says. “It was a very sacred moment.” Unable to forgive her daughter’s killer, Julie left the priesthood eight months after her daughter’s death. Yet as Julie and hundreds of others were plunged into grief, the documentary also depicts the challenges and pressures on rescue workers and police presiding over what would become one of the biggest police criminal investigations since the Second World War. Andy Hayman, then the Met’s assistant commissioner, had started that July day pounding the treadmill, delighted by news announced the previous day, that London was to host the 2012 Olympic Games. “I knew there was a high probability that No 10 or senior civil servants would want to see me to say, ‘You lot have talked a good job, now you’ve got to deliver,’” he recalls. Instead, within hours, he found himself in the “pressure cooker” of an emergency Cobra meeting, being asked for answers he didn’t have. Just three weeks earlier, Hayman had been involved in a weekend training course preparing for a terrorist event in the city – but he concedes that little can truly prepare you for the reality. “A field exercise is one thing. But when it’s in your face, it’s a different creature,” he recalls. “For a start, most of the plans were not relevant because we were predicating everything on bad people who lived outside the UK coming in – because that’s what happened in 9/11. Then suddenly, here they are, with a Yorkshire accent. It was shocking. We had never faced, in this country, the potential that in a split second someone could detonate suicide bombs. We thought we had plans in place to prevent a terrorist attack – but we didn’t.” Hayman was also facing a melee of conflicting aims. “I wanted to preserve the crime scene but, understandably, the transport minister wanted to get London moving again. You’ve got this push and pull going on all the time. The pressure is really high – and no one’s been there before.” The public was also desperate for reassurance that there wouldn’t be another attack, a question that was grimly answered when, two weeks later, four more bombs were left on the Underground and a bus. Thankfully, only the detonators exploded. The terrorists who planted them fled, but were subsequently captured and each sentenced to life imprisonment. Twenty-four hours later, intelligence led police to an address in south London, from which they followed a man called Jean Charles de Menezes. Believing him to be a suicide bomber, they shot him on a train at Stockwell Underground station. He was, in fact, completely innocent. In the documentary, the then Met commissioner Sir Ian Blair reflects on the errors carried out by the Met in the aftermath of the shooting. Hayman later spoke of his own regret at not challenging his senior officer at the time, although today he is more measured. “It was an absolutely dreadful event for everyone involved, not least Jean Charles and his family,” he says. “But it boils down to someone having one shot, one second to make a decision. Those cops never came to work any day of the week to do the wrong thing. We do our best, and for that split second it wasn’t good enough. And when that happens, we have to stand up, be honest and be held accountable.” Nothing, of course, will bring back those whose lives were lost. This July, as she does every year, Julie will return to the scene where her daughter died to mark the anniversary of her death. “I do still feel a compulsion to go back each year, but I don’t linger long, and it’s a private thing,” she says. “Whoever pitches up on that day, we go out and have a really special brunch. We drink champagne and we toast Jenny’s memory.”
5 top tips from the Glucose Goddess Jessie Inchauspé, star of new Channel 4 series
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. If Jessie Inchauspé – known to millions as the Glucose Goddess – could convince us of one thing, it’s that changing our diet for the better need not be a Herculean task. ‘"There’s this big misconception that dietary change is going to mean restrictions,” she says. “People don’t want to change what they eat because they think it’s going to be hard and horrible. But it doesn’t need to be at all." It’s a message the French biochemist hopes will hit home in her new Channel 4 series, which challenges people with problems ranging from weight gain to acne and psoriasis to see if following her rules on regulating blood sugar levels and removing harmful cravings for just six weeks makes a difference. Inchauspé’s path to bestselling author and influencer began 13 years ago when, aged 19, she broke her back jumping off a waterfall on holiday in Hawaii. Her vertebrae fractured into 13 pieces, and her prolonged recovery proved to be both physically and mentally painful. "I had this horrible condition called depersonalisation, which is a feeling of literally being terrified of being alive, not understanding why you have a body, having panic attacks as soon as I looked in the mirror," she says. "It was horrendous.’" While her back eventually healed following surgery, the experience prompted Inchauspé, who was studying for a maths degree in London at the time, to better understand her physiology. "I realised health should be my number one priority," she says. Inchauspé focused on biochemistry and genetics, completing a master’s degree in biochemistry. In 2018 she tried out a glucose monitor: “I saw that I had these big glucose spikes which would trigger depersonalisation episodes,’’ she says. ‘‘It was so shocking, because in six years of struggling, nobody had said that my food could actually impact my mental health. That’s when I started fixing my food.’’ After two years “fixing herself”, Inchauspé put her simple hacks on Instagram. ‘‘I had this fire in me,’’ she recalls. “I thought I might get to a few thousand followers.” Six years later, the Glucose Goddess has a five million-strong fanbase on the social media platform. “It’s been a crazy journey,’’ she says. Not everyone is sold. Inchauspé has been criticised for selling a supplement on her website that she claims steadies glucose levels; for making generalisations based on her own experience; and for encouraging people to focus on glucose spikes that may be perfectly normal. ‘‘Small spikes are normal,’’ she says. ‘‘But spikes that are really high are not, and they are detrimental to health. I think when people criticise me, they just don’t fully understand the message. Often they think, ‘Oh, she’s an Instagram influencer,’ but I’m 100 per cent confident in my methods. They’re based on science.’’ Inchauspé acknowledges that however good people’s intentions may be, they are bombarded on all sides by sugar-saturated goods and advertising. “I’d love to see the Government bring in industry-wide requirements that limit, say, the amount of the sugar in a pot of yogurt. It has to apply to all manufacturers, because if one food company is trying to do better, consumers are going to go to the next food company. It has to be a joint effort.’’ Alongside recipes, much of Inchauspé’s work is based on simple explanations of the science behind her methods, including easy-to-understand graphs demonstrating the effects of glucose on the body. “I see myself as a science communicator, taking studies by scientists across the world and making them accessible to people to show them that glucose levels matter for everybody. My hacks are easy and they work.” More than anything, she wants people to understand that eating well doesn’t need to be a full-time job. “It’s not a diet you can fail at,” she insists. “Do this when you remember and when it’s easy. Don’t get stressed out when you can’t do them or forget. Every bit helps.’’ The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Eat Smart: Secrets of the Glucose Goddess begins on Tuesday 7th January at 8pm on Channel 4. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Controlling your blood sugar levels is the key to a healthy and happy life, says “Glucose Goddess” Jessie Inchauspé
Add Eat Smart: Secrets of the Glucose Goddess to your watchlist If Jessie Inchauspé – known to millions as the Glucose Goddess – could convince us of one thing, it’s that changing our diet for the better need not be a Herculean task. ‘‘There’s this big misconception that dietary change is going to mean restrictions,” she says. “People don’t want to change what they eat because they think it’s going to be hard and horrible. But it doesn’t need to be at all.” It’s a message the French biochemist hopes will hit home in her new Channel 4 series, which challenges people with problems ranging from weight gain to acne and psoriasis to see if following her rules on regulating blood sugar levels and removing harmful cravings for just six weeks makes a difference. Inchauspé’s path to bestselling author and influencer began 13 years ago when, aged 19, she broke her back jumping off a waterfall on holiday in Hawaii. Her vertebrae fractured into 13 pieces, and her prolonged recovery proved to be both physically and mentally painful. “I had this horrible condition called depersonalisation, which is a feeling of literally being terrified of being alive, not understanding why you have a body, having panic attacks as soon as I looked in the mirror,’’ she says. “It was horrendous.’’ While her back eventually healed following surgery, the experience prompted Inchauspé, who was studying for a maths degree in London at the time, to better understand her physiology. ‘‘I realised health should be my number one priority,’’ she says. Inchauspé focused on biochemistry and genetics, completing a master’s degree in biochemistry. In 2018 she tried out a glucose monitor: “I saw that I had these big glucose spikes which would trigger depersonalisation episodes,’’ she says. ‘‘It was so shocking, because in six years of struggling, nobody had said that my food could actually impact my mental health. That’s when I started fixing my food.’’ After two years “fixing herself”, Inchauspé put her simple hacks on Instagram. ‘‘I had this fire in me,’’ she recalls. “I thought I might get to a few thousand followers.” Six years later, the Glucose Goddess has a five million-strong fanbase on the social media platform. “It’s been a crazy journey,’’ she says. Not everyone is sold. Inchauspé has been criticised for selling a supplement on her website that she claims steadies glucose levels; for making generalisations based on her own experience; and for encouraging people to focus on glucose spikes that may be perfectly normal. ‘‘Small spikes are normal,’’ she says. ‘‘But spikes that are really high are not, and they are detrimental to health. I think when people criticise me, they just don’t fully understand the message. Often they think, ‘Oh, she’s an Instagram influencer,’ but I’m 100 per cent confident in my methods. They’re based on science.’’ Inchauspé acknowledges that however good people’s intentions may be, they are bombarded on all sides by sugar-saturated goods and advertising. “I’d love to see the Government bring in industry-wide requirements that limit, say, the amount of the sugar in a pot of yogurt. It has to apply to all manufacturers, because if one food company is trying to do better, consumers are going to go to the next food company. It has to be a joint effort.’’ Alongside recipes, much of Inchauspé’s work is based on simple explanations of the science behind her methods, including easy-to-understand graphs demonstrating the effects of glucose on the body. “I see myself as a science communicator, taking studies by scientists across the world and making them accessible to people to show them that glucose levels matter for everybody. My hacks are easy and they work.” More than anything, she wants people to understand that eating well doesn’t need to be a full-time job. “It’s not a diet you can fail at,” she insists. “Do this when you remember and when it’s easy. Don’t get stressed out when you can’t do them or forget. Every bit helps.’’ JESSIE'S 5 TOP HACKS 1 Have a savoury breakfast ‘‘Breakfast is the most powerful meal of the day,” says Inchauspé. “If you do it right, you’re going to feel so much better.’’ That means starting your day with eggs, sourdough bread and veggies rather than cereal and fruit juice. ‘’Take your leftover dish or chicken from last night’s supper, crack some eggs and heat in a pan. Or have some cheese. Whatever you do, make it a normal savoury meal.’’ 2 Eat your veggies first ’We’ve done this in France for a long time, and for good reason. They create a protective mesh in your upper intestine that slows down the rate at which the rest of your food arrives in your bloodstream. It’s a very powerful hack.’’ 3 Eat sweets after a meal, never before ’If you eat something sweet at the end of a meal, you’re still getting the same dopamine from the sweetness hitting your tongue, but the impact on your bloodstream and organs is slowed down by the rest of your food. There’s nothing worse than having sugar on an empty stomach.’’ 4 Prep savoury snacks to have at hand ‘‘Beef jerky, carrots and houmous, nuts, a portion of cheese and chopped-up cucumber are all good.” In other words, anything to stop you reaching for a biscuit. 5 Drink a spoonful of vinegar in a glass of water before a meal ‘’Vinegar has a really cool molecule in it called acetic acid that slows down the breakdown of food into glucose molecules,’’ Inchauspé explains. ‘’It helps it land in your body more slowly.’’ It is an acquired taste, but a vinegar-based dressing on a starter is a good trade, as is lemon juice. ‘’Lemon juice is not as powerful, but it still has an impact.”
It’s 50 years since the notorious killing of Sandra Rivett. Now her son is determined to find her killer
Add Lucan to your watchlist When Neil Berriman opened the brown envelope containing items from his past that his adoptive mother had left for him, one item in particular stood out. There, among the first birthday cards and adoption papers, was a newspaper cutting about a 29-year-old children’s nanny called Sandra Rivett, who had been brutally killed by the aristocrat Lord Lucan. Piecing together the documents in the envelope, it transpired that Sandra Rivett was Berriman’s birth mother. “I remember it was difficult to breathe,” the 57-year-old says now of the moment of his bombshell discovery. “It was horrendous.” Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, vanished after Rivett’s murder at the Belgravia house he owned on 7 November 1974, in what police believed at the time (and an inquest later declared) was a case of mistaken identity, his intended target being his estranged wife Veronica, with whom he was engaged in a vicious custody battle. Rivett had been bludgeoned to death, and while Lucan’s blood-stained car was later found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex, he was never traced, despite numerous reported sightings around the world. Lord Lucan’s family maintained he had subsequently killed himself. He was formally declared dead by the UK’s High Court in February 2016. But father-of-two Berriman, from Hampshire, is convinced that Lord Lucan, who would be 90 in December, is still alive. His journey to discover the truth and try and unearth new evidence of Lord Lucan’s whereabouts – working with investigative journalist Glen Campbell – features in a compelling three-part BBC documentary that takes the pair from South Africa to Australia. Berriman’s mission to find out what really happened began in earnest when, in 2012, Scotland Yard allowed him to see harrowing photographs of the crime scene. The legacy of seeing those images has been visceral and long-lasting. “I was on antidepressants for two and a bit years… Because there’s my mother dead, and somebody’s got away with it,” he says. He pauses. “Even now, talking about it, I can still see those pictures.” Berriman was born when Rivett (who became pregnant with a married man) was just 21, and given up for adoption. He enjoyed a happy, “normal” childhood with his adoptive parents Ian and Audrey, and while he was told at the age of ten that he was adopted, he had little interest in his birth parents. “As I got older, Mum would try to push this brown envelope on me, but I said I wasn’t interested in finding out about my real parents – until one of my adoptive parents passed away,” he recalls. Even then, it took three years after Audrey’s death from cancer in 2004 for Berriman – by then approaching 40 – to take the envelope out of what had been her bedside drawer. “Perhaps it was a milestone birthday,” he says. “I felt the time was right.” Nothing could have prepared him for what was inside, and it sparked an intense desire to find out more about the young woman who had given birth to him. “Of course, there wasn’t a great deal of information about her out there, because all along Sandra has been the forgotten victim; everything’s always been about Lord Lucan,” he says. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to embark on this mission. I’ve done it for my mother. Because who else was going to?” As he immersed himself in trying to find out more, Berriman says he was “stumped” at the notion that Lucan – about whom he admits nurturing intense feelings of “hatred and anger” for many years – had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth. “The fact was, there was no proof that he was dead,” he says. “And if he wasn’t, I wanted to see him brought to justice.” His partner, Kim, and his now grown-up children Oliver and Melissa from a previous marriage, have also been affected by a quest that Berriman, a builder by trade, admits has dominated his waking hours for years. “It did take over,” he says. “It was 24/7 and it was everything that we used to talk about. And I could see Kim was fed up with it, but it didn’t stop me. But she stuck by me, and the kids, too.” He admits there have been times when he regrets opening that brown envelope 17 years ago. “It’s caused a lot of anguish, but deep down, I don’t [regret it]. Because even after all the upset it’s about justice,” he says. “People talk about this big mystery, but that didn’t matter to me. All that matters is the mum I never knew.”
Is Lord Lucan alive? New evidence in the hunt for the infamous Earl
Three-part documentary series Lucan will air on BBC Two.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. When Neil Berriman opened the brown envelope containing items from his past that his adoptive mother had left for him, one item in particular stood out. There, among the first birthday cards and adoption papers, was a newspaper cutting about a 29-year-old children’s nanny called Sandra Rivett, who had been brutally killed by the aristocrat Lord Lucan. Piecing together the documents in the envelope, it transpired that Sandra Rivett was Berriman’s birth mother. "I remember it was difficult to breathe," the 57-year-old says now of the moment of his bombshell discovery. "It was horrendous." Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, vanished after Rivett’s murder at the Belgravia house he owned on 7 November 1974, in what police believed at the time (and an inquest later declared) was a case of mistaken identity, his intended target being his estranged wife Veronica, with whom he was engaged in a vicious custody battle. Rivett had been bludgeoned to death, and while Lucan’s blood-stained car was later found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex, he was never traced, despite numerous reported sightings around the world. Lord Lucan’s family maintained he had subsequently killed himself. He was formally declared dead by the UK’s High Court in February 2016. But father-of-two Berriman, from Hampshire, is convinced that Lord Lucan, who would be 90 in December, is still alive. His journey to discover the truth and try and unearth new evidence of Lord Lucan’s whereabouts – working with investigative journalist Glen Campbell – features in a compelling three-part BBC documentary that takes the pair from South Africa to Australia. Berriman’s mission to find out what really happened began in earnest when, in 2012, Scotland Yard allowed him to see harrowing photographs of the crime scene. The legacy of seeing those images has been visceral and long-lasting. "I was on antidepressants for two and a bit years… Because there’s my mother dead, and somebody’s got away with it," he says. He pauses. "Even now, talking about it, I can still see those pictures." Berriman was born when Rivett (who became pregnant with a married man) was just 21, and given up for adoption. He enjoyed a happy, "normal" childhood with his adoptive parents Ian and Audrey, and while he was told at the age of 10 that he was adopted, he had little interest in his birth parents. "As I got older, Mum would try to push this brown envelope on me, but I said I wasn’t interested in finding out about my real parents – until one of my adoptive parents passed away," he recalls. Even then, it took three years after Audrey’s death from cancer in 2004 for Berriman – by then approaching 40 – to take the envelope out of what had been her bedside drawer. "Perhaps it was a milestone birthday," he says. "I felt the time was right." Nothing could have prepared him for what was inside, and it sparked an intense desire to find out more about the young woman who had given birth to him. "Of course, there wasn’t a great deal of information about her out there, because all along Sandra has been the forgotten victim; everything’s always been about Lord Lucan," he says. "It’s one of the reasons I decided to embark on this mission. I’ve done it for my mother. Because who else was going to?" As he immersed himself in trying to find out more, Berriman says he was "stumped" at the notion that Lucan – about whom he admits nurturing intense feelings of "hatred and anger" for many years – had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth. "The fact was, there was no proof that he was dead," he says. "And if he wasn’t, I wanted to see him brought to justice." His partner, Kim, and his now grown-up children Oliver and Melissa from a previous marriage, have also been affected by a quest that Berriman, a builder by trade, admits has dominated his waking hours for years. "It did take over," he says. "It was 24/7 and it was everything that we used to talk about. And I could see Kim was fed up with it, but it didn’t stop me. But she stuck by me, and the kids, too." He admits there have been times when he regrets opening that brown envelope 17 years ago. "It’s caused a lot of anguish, but deep down, I don’t [regret it]. Because even after all the upset it’s about justice," he says. "People talk about this big mystery, but that didn’t matter to me. All that matters is the mum I never knew." Lucan will start airing at 9pm on Wednesday 6th November on BBC Two. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Ten years after British troops left Afghanistan, a new documentary tells the real stories of those who fought and died in Helmand
Add Helmand: Tour of Duty to your watchlist Of the many horrors he witnessed during his six-month tour of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2009, one in particular brought Steven Peters to his knees. Peters, a sergeant in the Welsh Guards, saw his unit’s interpreter blown to pieces in front of him. The man, an Afghan who was seconded to Peters’ team, had been due to go on leave less than 24 hours later, to visit his young family. Instead he became another casualty of this most brutal of wars. “It broke me,” Peters recalls. ‘‘It was like when you’re a child and you start to cry and you can’t stop.” Yet this terrible tragedy was far from an isolated incident. History would later judge that the ferociously demanding six-month tour by the Welsh Guards – with its extraordinary number of casualties, including 72 fatalities – was the bloodiest period for British forces in the entire Afghan conflict. Now, to mark the ten-year anniversary of the withdrawal of frontline British troops from Afghanistan in 2014, a compelling new BBC documentary, Helmand: Tour of Duty allows survivors – and their loved ones – to tell their stories. Unsparing in its depiction of the realities of day-to-day warfare, it also examines, unflinchingly, the impact of the conflict on both soldiers and their families. “I don’t think the public really had an idea of what was going on there on a daily basis,” says Peters, now 42. ‘‘Mortars going off, missiles – there was something happening on an hourly basis. It was constant.” A career soldier, Peters joined the Army in 1988 as a 16-year-old, retiring only last year. ‘‘Until then, the Army was all I’d known,” he reflects. When he arrived in Helmand in March 2009 he was sergeant of a recce platoon and a veteran of several overseas tours, including the Balkans, Northern Ireland and Iraq. “They were nothing compared to what we walked into in Afghanistan,” he says. This is an assessment made chillingly clear by the documentary and shared by fellow veteran Jonathan Jenkinson, who describes the province as a “relentless 360-degree battleground”. Jenkinson, who like Peters had joined the Army straight from school, was soon made aware of the stark realities of Helmand. Working as a colour sergeant leading a fire support group, he recalls how a young lance corporal was killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) less than a month after their tour of duty began. ‘‘I think what the Taliban were doing was just sussing us out initially, so for the first couple of weeks, we didn’t really understand what was going to come forth,” he explains. Working in searing heat and dust, with the risk of landmines all around, the soldiers were also hampered by equipment they didn’t always think was up to the job, among them the “all terrain” Viking vehicle in which they were regularly deployed. “If you hit an IED it wouldn’t take the blast,” says Jenkinson, now 50. “Whenever we were in them I was worried. You’re thinking, ‘Please God, let’s not go over the IEDs.’” For Peters, the Viking was at the centre of another horrifying incident during which an attempt to secure a canal used by the Taliban to transport troops and weapons nearly ended in tragedy when one vehicle rolled into the water. Amid the threat of enemy fire, he describes the frantic attempts to open the sealed door of what was fast becoming a watery coffin for those trapped inside. “All I’m thinking is that the Taliban are 100 metres away and they’re going to ambush us, but also knowing that all my soldiers, friends, brothers are drowning. “Then after about five minutes, we managed to get the door open and bodies were coming out. Some were injured, a couple floated out with no life in them. We got them back, but if we had had two more minutes without any doors opening, we would have lost eight soldiers.” The memory remains traumatic. “But at the time, we were commanders, and you have to be almost robotic in some sense; everything needs to be filed away somewhere else,” Peters says. “You can’t show weakness. You can’t show that you’re flapping, because it flows down to your soldiers. And there’s no time – you’d have an incident like that, and then six hours later, the next mission comes in. It’s relentless.” Both men were also mindful of the ongoing anguish of loved ones back home. Peters, then married to first wife Leanne, had left her behind along with three young children aged between one and five, while Jenkinson had a stepdaughter at primary school and young sons with wife Jess. “Obviously you do think about your family all the time, especially when you’re out on patrol, but you have to compartmentalise,” Jenkinson explains. ‘‘You’ve got your family, and then you’ve got your other family – in the Army.” This feeling of responsibility towards his men was reinforced after he was injured, struck in the back by an artillery drone, a few months into the tour. Flown back to the UK for intensive treatment, Jenkinson opted to return to Helmand the minute he was declared medically fit. “It was very difficult for my wife to understand,” he acknowledges. “It was upsetting for her and the family, but I needed to get back and do my part and make sure my soldiers were looked after.” When he finally returned home, suffering flashbacks and nightmares, he chose to undergo private counselling. “I was lucky I didn’t go off the rails,” he says. “Although my wife says, since Afghanistan, I have never really slept properly.” He retired in December 2013 after 23 years of service and went on to work as a hostile environment consultant, which involves visiting dangerous countries. “I must be a glutton for punishment,” he says wryly. Meanwhile, Peters confides that when he returned home he chose to lock away the traumas he had endured “to be dealt with at a later date”. That came in 2019 when, still a serving soldier, he suffered a breakdown that he only survived through intensive therapy. “I had to embrace the vulnerability and totally open up and it made all the difference,” he says. Today, he lives a quiet life in a Northumberland village, where he works part time as a gamekeeper and for a family security business. Both men struggled with the news of the withdrawal of the last American troops in August 2021. “When I saw it on the news it left me reeling,” Peters admits. “I had close friends and colleagues who were killed, injured, suffering mental trauma and you ask yourself, ‘Was it all for nothing?’” Jenkinson found it similarly tough. “At the same time, politicians are paid to make those decisions. You sign on the dotted line, you go where they tell you to go and you do the best job you can while you’re there. If you think about it too much, you could drive yourself crazy.” Both hope that the documentary will help viewers to understand more about the realities of war. “Ultimately we are normal people, but there is a lot of suffering that does get left behind and forgotten about,” says Peters, “so it felt good for us to tell our story.”
A new film focuses on the horror of the Nova festival massacre
Add Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again to your watchlist Even as a young boy, Aner Shapiro was always the first to stand up for what was right. ‘‘If someone was being bullied, Aner would step in. The most important thing for him was to be a good man,” his mother Shira recalls. Today, it comes as a huge comfort to Shira, her husband Moshe and Aner’s six younger siblings that the 22-year-old died as he had lived, heroically trying to save fellow festival-goers targeted by members of Hamas at Israel’s Nova festival last year. Sheltering with others in a small roadside bomb shelter following the attack, during which at least 360 young partygoers were murdered, Aner didn’t hesitate when terrorists started to throw grenades through the entrance, picking them up and throwing them back. However, he paid for his bravery with his life: the eighth grenade he picked up exploded in his hand, killing him instantly. His story is among those featured in Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again, a powerful documentary that pieces together the harrowing events of that day. ‘‘The way he died represents the way he lived – with passion, and courage,” says Shira. Like all those affected by the events of a year ago, she struggles to understand how such horror came to be visited on her close-knit family. Prior to travelling to the festival, Shira’s loving, family-oriented son, an Israeli soldier who was also a keen musician and had recorded songs of his own, had attended a Shabbat dinner at his parents’ home. View oEmbed on the source website When the family heard sirens at 8am the next morning, they knew something significant had happened. But it was only when Aner’s phone went unanswered and they learnt the festival had come under attack that they started to fear the worst. “I started to scream, and I didn’t stop,” Shira says. Amid the chaos and devastation of the aftermath, it took six days to discover Aner’s fate. “In my heart I knew he was gone, but I didn’t want to believe it,” she says. By then, the visceral terror suffered by those trapped in the shelter – and Aner’s heroism – had become all too apparent. Out of 27 who sought refuge there, only seven made it out alive, among them Ziv Abud, 27, who attended the festival with her fiancé Eliya Cohen, also 27. The couple, who got together when they were 19, had been partying overnight when a red alert warning was sounded at 6.30am. “I looked in the sky and saw what looked like a thousand rockets and I knew something was terribly wrong,” Ziv recalls. She and Eliya fled with her nephew Amit and his girlfriend Karin before taking refuge in the roadside shelter – one built to protect people from rocket fire but which offered no protection from hurled explosives. “We thought it was a safe place to stay,” she says. More desperate partygoers joined them. “The last man that came in was Aner, with his friend Hersh. He told us there were a lot of terrorists, it’s not a good situation. Then he immediately took responsibility and said if grenades came in he would throw them back.” As the grenades started to fly, the air was thick with fear. “I heard a lot of people say goodbye to each other,” Ziv says. When the eighth grenade exploded in Aner’s hand, Ziv found herself buried under a pile of bodies. “It was chaos,” she says. “I could hear Eliya screaming. He grabbed my hand; I couldn’t hear any more and now I know this is the moment he was kidnapped.” Eliya was taken from the shelter alongside Aner’s friend Hersh and two others, while 16 others were murdered. After spending hours trapped under bodies, Ziv emerged to see her nephew and his girlfriend among the many dead. “I searched everywhere for Eliya, but I could not find him.” She soon learnt he had been taken hostage. “I was terrified,” she says. “But then I thought maybe it would just be a couple of weeks and he would return.” But nearly a year later, she is still fighting for the man she has since learnt was going to propose and had already bought a ring. “Everything is a fight – to eat, to sleep and not to cry, but especially not to let people forget,” she says. “But I have faith that I will see Eliya again.” News last month that Hersh was murdered by Hamas after around 320 days in captivity hit hard. “It was terrible,” says Ziv, quietly. “But we must keep fighting for the others.” That sentiment is shared by Shira and Moshe, who take comfort in the knowledge their son died trying to save others. “I hope what he did can help change the world,” says Shira. “It shows that a man can save people with his bare hands.”
Nadiya Hussain on giving scraps a new lease of life in BBC Two's Cook Once, Eat Twice
The former Bake Off winner talks to Radio Times about her latest series, the downsides of the "big weekly shop" and approaching a milestone birthday.
This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. As addictions go, the one that Nadiya Hussain confides has got her within its grip is probably not one to worry about too much. "It seems ridiculous to get excited about not wasting food, but it really is quite addictive," she beams. "In a good way of course. Using up everything in the fridge really can give you a dopamine hit." Unconvinced? A half-hour in the effervescent company of the former Bake Off winner - not to mention her thoughts about what to do with potato peelings, wilting vegetables and even the gloopy water from a can of chickpeas that we carelessly dispatch into the bin or down the sink - may get you thinking differently. At least, that's what 39-year-old Nadiya hopes to achieve with her six-part series, Nadiya's Cook Once, Eat Twice, during which the mum-of-three showcases inventive ways to utilise leftovers and make the most of what's lurking in the murky hidden corners of the nation's fridges. It's no surprise to anyone who has watched Nadiya cook that the series (with its accompanying book) is full of easily digestible handy tips and quick fixes - but as she ferments, preserves, blitzes and bludgeons breadcrumbs and peelings, it's also clear this show is driven by a very personal passion. "Not wasting has been a big part of my entire life," she explains. "I grew up in an immigrant household, we lived from wage to wage, we were always saving, using up everything that we had - waste just wasn't an option. So it's something that's been ingrained in me. I will find some way of using everything; I will never, ever throw anything away." Growing up in Luton as one of six in a second-generation British Bangladeshi family, money was tight and nothing went to waste. But it goes further than that - the family returned to Bangladesh once a year, where the relationship between humans and the food chain was consistently reinforced. "In Bangladesh if you were to eat rice, you grew your rice; if you wanted vegetables you grew vegetables," she says. "It sounds obvious, but what happens with society now is that if you didn't grow it, you don't know how it got there, so if it gets wasted, it doesn't matter to you, and that's where the disconnect has happened. "Today we have a culture of instant gratification where you click a button and food gets delivered to your door. And I suppose by doing a show and a book like this, we're trying to bridge that gap. By not wasting, you definitely start to understand the value of that ingredient." Nadiya Hussain's new book Cook Once, Eat Twice is available to order now Her enthusiasm is infectious, but it's fair to say even the irrepressible Nadiya has something of a mountain to climb on this one: despite a cost of living crisis - and a time when we are more than aware of what industrial food production is doing to the planet - many of us, frankly, simply can't be bothered to do much else than scrape our plates into the bin and throw out the sad old carrots in the salad drawer. "Oh I know," she agrees. "Leftovers don't have a great reputation. They're there in the fridge, clingfilmed or in some tupperware, and a day goes by, then two then five days, and you think, 'I'm just going to have to bin them.' I get it. This is about showing people that leftovers can be really fun and you can re-create them into something really amazing without using too much brain space. It honestly doesn't have to be a faff." So how about trying Nadiya's recipe for a chickpea and chicken traybake and then using any leftovers to make her spiced chicken-topped hummus? Nadiya shows us how to make a potato peel gratin (a crunchier version of an old favourite), clementine peel sugar and even gives instructions on how to make meringues with discarded chickpea water. Nothing goes to waste in the Hussain household - and with peels and scraps all finding a delicious new purpose, there isn't a compost bin in sight in her kitchen - "No need," she grins, "there's a use for everything." Nadiya also has misgivings about the British tradition of the "big weekly shop". "If you're forcing yourself to go every Sunday, are you really thinking about what you have at home, and whether you are using those ingredients up before you go?" she asks. "For me, I find the biggest thrill is if I can stretch all my ingredients to not just one week, but maybe even 10 days or, dare I say it, 14. I love that. When we get to two weeks and the fridge is bare and my husband is suggesting we go to the shops, I'm still saying, 'We could use this or that…' I love that challenge!" When she does go to the supermarket near the family home in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, it's armed with a list from which she doesn't deviate - other than to snap up discounted items close to their sell by date. "I love a yellow sticker," she beams. "I'll find broccoli, carrots, that kind of stuff, prep them all and just stick them in the freezer. Bread is great for freezing, too. You can just pop a slice straight into the toaster or blitz it for breadcrumbs." Make no mistake, though, while Nadiya is militant about not wasting a morsel she's also a mum of three teenagers - she and husband Abdal have Musa, 18, Dawud, 17, and 13-year-old daughter Maryam bringing up the rear. That means the odd takeaway and the odd bit of junk food, although she confides that her boys in particular, would happily eat their mum's homemade rice and curry every day. "My daughter likes it, too, although we get to three days and then she's like, 'It's not curry again tonight, is it?' Which is when I tell her if she doesn't want the curry, she knows where the kitchen is and she can go and make some pasta." With even her youngest just a few years off adulthood now, she's also found herself reflecting on what the future may hold once her brood have left the nest. "Because they love their bedrooms, they'll often just chill out there, which is absolutely fine, so I'm definitely finding I've got a lot more time to myself and I see more time on the horizon, which is great. Maybe I can do some more travelling," she says. "At the same time, I'm also really dreading it - I'm definitely getting that feeling of an empty nest a little bit." Though there is, apparently, a novel solution to partially fill the void. "I have told my husband recently that I really want to get a macaw," she says. "I really, really want a beautiful macaw." Nadiya has also recently taken up archery, although she confides she is scattergun about her hobbies. "I really love archery but I'm guilty of starting something and not fully committing to it, then I'll just stop. So we'll see." What must Abdal make of it all? "He says he can't deal with all my random ideas," she laughs. Of course, he's used to his wife's capricious ways - they've been married for 19 years, and it's Abdal who has been by Nadiya's side since she won Bake Off in 2015, catapulting her to nationwide fame. Television series and books followed and in 2020 she was awarded the MBE. "That was huge for me," she says. "When my grandad came to the country he was abused really badly by racists, and he was left for dead three times. But he refused to leave, because he could see that his children and grandchildren would have a better life here than in Bangladesh. And he made that sacrifice, despite knowing that he wasn't welcome. I know he would be so proud of me because he now has a granddaughter with an MBE, and it would signify belonging." Along the way Nadiya has also opened up about the panic attacks and anxiety that have been a recurring part of her life, and says that while she was understandably apprehensive about going public, she now sees choosing to be so candid as "definitely one of the best things I did". Today she says she has got a much better understanding of her boundaries. "It comes down to understanding my body," she reveals. "When I know that I'm feeling a little bit fragile and I'm not quite right, and I'm just struggling, I will not look at certain things; I actively protect myself. That's something that I've learnt over the last ten years - that I can't control all the external factors, but if I can manage me, that makes all the difference." She turns 40 on Christmas Day this year, a milestone that she confides she initially felt apprehensive about, but which she has now chosen to embrace on her own terms. "I think when you get to a milestone birthday, you do feel like you have to make some big changes and that puts all this added pressure on yourself. Then I thought, 'Why am I doing this? I just want to go to Mexico.' I'm not Taylor Swift, I don't need to reinvent myself." Instead - in a move that many of the same age will surely recognise - it's her kitchen that's getting the overhaul. "I'm finally getting the kitchen I want," she says. It will come complete with a 22-seater dining table and a sparkling water tap - though no compost bin, of course. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Nadiya's Cook Once, Eat Twice begins at 7:30pm on Tuesday 17th September on BBC Two and iPlayer – you can order Nadiya's new Cook Once, Eat Twice companion book now. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Nadiya Hussain is giving scraps a new lease of life, but despite approaching a milestone birthday, she’s leaving the makeovers in the kitchen
Add Nadiya's Cook Once, Eat Twice to your watchlist As addictions go, the one that Nadiya Hussain confides has got her within its grip is probably not one to worry about too much. ‘‘It seems ridiculous to get excited about not wasting food, but it really is quite addictive,’’ she beams. ‘‘In a good way of course. Using up everything in the fridge really can give you a dopamine hit.’’ Unconvinced? A half-hour in the effervescent company of the former Bake Off winner – not to mention her thoughts about what to do with potato peelings, wilting vegetables and even the gloopy water from a can of chickpeas that we carelessly dispatch into the bin or down the sink – may get you thinking differently. At least, that’s what 39-year-old Nadiya hopes to achieve with her six-part series, Nadiya’s Cook Once, Eat Twice, during which the mum-of-three showcases inventive ways to utilise leftovers and make the most of what’s lurking in the murky hidden corners of the nation’s fridges. It’s no surprise to anyone who has watched Nadiya cook that the series (with its accompanying book) is full of easily digestible handy tips and quick fixes – but as she ferments, preserves, blitzes and bludgeons breadcrumbs and peelings, it’s also clear this show is driven by a very personal passion. ‘‘Not wasting has been a big part of my entire life,’’ she explains. ‘‘I grew up in an immigrant household, we lived from wage to wage, we were always saving, using up everything that we had – waste just wasn’t an option. So it’s something that’s been ingrained in me. I will find some way of using everything; I will never, ever throw anything away.’’ Growing up in Luton as one of six in a second generation British Bangladeshi family, money was tight and nothing went to waste. But it goes further than that – the family returned to Bangladesh once a year, where the relationship between humans and the food chain was consistently reinforced. ‘‘In Bangladesh if you were to eat rice, you grew your rice; if you wanted vegetables you grew vegetables,” she says. “It sounds obvious, but what happens with society now is that if you didn’t grow it, you don’t know how it got there, so if it gets wasted, it doesn’t matter to you, and that’s where the disconnect has happened. “Today we have a culture of instant gratification where you click a button and food gets delivered to your door. And I suppose by doing a show and a book like this, we’re trying to bridge that gap. By not wasting, you definitely start to understand the value of that ingredient.’’ Her enthusiasm is infectious, but it’s fair to say even the irrepressible Nadiya has something of a mountain to climb on this one: despite a cost of living crisis – and a time when we are more than aware of what industrial food production is doing to the planet – many of us, frankly, simply can’t be bothered to do much else than scrape our plates into the bin and throw out the sad old carrots in the salad drawer. ‘‘Oh I know,’’ she agrees. “Leftovers don’t have a great reputation. They’re there in the fridge, clingfilmed or in some tupperware, and a day goes by, then two then five days, and you think, ‘I’m just going to have to bin them.’ I get it. This is about showing people that leftovers can be really fun and you can re-create them into something really amazing without using too much brain space. It honestly doesn’t have to be a faff.” So how about trying Nadiya’s recipe for a chickpea and chicken traybake and then using any leftovers to make her spiced chicken-topped hummus? Nadiya shows us how to make a potato peel gratin (a crunchier version of an old favourite), clementine peel sugar and even gives instructions on how to make meringues with discarded chickpea water. Nothing goes to waste in the Hussain household – and with peels and scraps all finding a delicious new purpose, there isn’t a compost bin in sight in her kitchen – “No need,’’ she grins, ‘‘there’s a use for everything.’’ Nadiya also has misgivings about the British tradition of the “big weekly shop”. ‘‘If you’re forcing yourself to go every Sunday, are you really thinking about what you have at home, and whether you are using those ingredients up before you go?’’ she asks. ‘‘For me, I find the biggest thrill is if I can stretch all my ingredients to not just one week, but maybe even ten days or, dare I say it, 14. I love that. When we get to two weeks and the fridge is bare and my husband is suggesting we go to the shops, I’m still saying, ‘We could use this or that…’ I love that challenge!’’ When she does go to the supermarket near the family home in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, it’s armed with a list from which she doesn’t deviate – other than to snap up discounted items close to their sell by date. “I love a yellow sticker,’’ she beams. “I’ll find broccoli, carrots, that kind of stuff, prep them all and just stick them in the freezer. Bread is great for freezing, too. You can just pop a slice straight into the toaster or blitz it for breadcrumbs.’’ Make no mistake, though, while Nadiya is militant about not wasting a morsel she’s also a mum of three teenagers – she and husband Abdal have Musa, 18, Dawud, 17, and 13-year old daughter Maryam bringing up the rear. That means the odd takeaway and the odd bit of junk food, although she confides that her boys in particular, would happily eat their mum’s homemade rice and curry every day. ‘‘My daughter likes it, too, although we get to three days and then she’s like, ‘It’s not curry again tonight, is it?’ Which is when I tell her if she doesn’t want the curry, she knows where the kitchen is and she can go and make some pasta.’’ With even her youngest just a few years off adulthood now, she’s also found herself reflecting on what the future may hold once her brood have left the nest. “Because they love their bedrooms, they’ll often just chill out there, which is absolutely fine, so I’m definitely finding I’ve got a lot more time to myself and I see more time on the horizon, which is great. Maybe I can do some more travelling,’’ she says. “At the same time, I’m also really dreading it – I’m definitely getting that feeling of an empty nest a little bit.’’ Though there is, apparently, a novel solution to partially fill the void. “I have told my husband recently that I really want to get a macaw,’’ she says. “I really, really want a beautiful macaw.’’ Nadiya has also recently taken up archery, although she confides she is scattergun about her hobbies. “I really love archery but I’m guilty of starting something and not fully committing to it, then I’ll just stop. So we’ll see.’’ What must Abdal make of it all? ‘‘He says he can’t deal with all my random ideas,’’ she laughs. Of course, he’s used to his wife’s capricious ways – they’ve been married for 19 years, and it’s Abdal who has been by Nadiya’s side since she won Bake Off in 2015, catapulting her to nationwide fame. Television series and books followed and in 2020 she was awarded the MBE. “That was huge for me,’’ she says. “When my grandad came to the country he was abused really badly by racists, and he was left for dead three times. But he refused to leave, because he could see that his children and grandchildren would have a better life here than in Bangladesh. And he made that sacrifice, despite knowing that he wasn’t welcome. I know he would be so proud of me because he now has a granddaughter with an MBE, and it would signify belonging.’’ Along the way Nadiya has also opened up about the panic attacks and anxiety that have been a recurring part of her life, and says that while she was understandably apprehensive about going public, she now sees choosing to be so candid as “definitely one of the best things I did”. Today she says she has got a much better understanding of her boundaries. “It comes down to understanding my body,’’ she reveals. “When I know that I’m feeling a little bit fragile and I’m not quite right, and I’m just struggling, I will not look at certain things; I actively protect myself. That’s something that I’ve learnt over the last ten years – that I can’t control all the external factors, but if I can manage me, that makes all the difference.’’ She turns 40 on Christmas Day this year, a milestone that she confides she initially felt apprehensive about, but which she has now chosen to embrace on her own terms. “I think when you get to a milestone birthday, you do feel like you have to make some big changes and that puts all this added pressure on yourself. Then I thought, ‘Why am I doing this? I just want to go to Mexico.’ I’m not Taylor Swift, I don’t need to reinvent myself.’’ Instead – in a move that many of the same age will surely recognise – it’s her kitchen that’s getting the overhaul. ‘‘I’m finally getting the kitchen I want,’’ she says. It will come complete with a 22-seater dining table and a sparkling water tap – though no compost bin, of course.
Sophie Morgan unsure Strictly would be "even playing field" for wheelchair user
TV presenter and disability advocate Sophie Morgan has said she’s unsure whether Strictly Come Dancing would be an "even playing field" for a wheelchair user. Speaking exclusively to Radio Times magazine for this week's issue, the Channel 4 Fight to Fly presenter opened up about disability representation on the popular dancing show. "It’s wonderful to have such positive representation and inclusion with the likes of Rose and Ellie and JJ Chalmers – it reminds me of what can happen when you give disabled people a space and a voice, look what we can do with that. But it should be an industry standard," she said. Asked whether she would ever take part in Strictly, she said: "Sure. It’s not something that intimidates me, but I don’t know, is it a level playing field with a wheelchair user and people who have got the use of their legs?" She continued: "I’m not sure how you would you judge that competition fairly. If they could figure that out then I’d say do it, but otherwise it might feel slightly tokenistic. "Do you know the one I really want to do, the Jungle [I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!]. I’m putting it out there." Morgan spoke out against rumours that she had been signed up to take part in Strictly last year, insisting: "I am not a wheelchair." It came after The Sun reported the rumours under the headline “Cha Cha Chair”. Morgan tweeted in response: "‘CHA, CHA, CHAIR….’ is this actually for real? @TheSun we need to have a word. I am NOT a wheelchair. I am a PERSON who uses a wheelchair. WtAF." Sophie Morgan's Fight to Fly airs Monday 22nd July at 9pm on Channel 4. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Murder in the Alps revisits true crime 10 years later
The new three-part true crime documentary airs on Channel 4 this weekend.
This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. On the morning of 6th September 2012, while Zaid al-Hilli was eating breakfast at his Surrey home, he heard a news report about a British family that had been killed in France. “I remember thinking it was very sad, then I showered, dressed and went to work,” he recalls. Only later that day did he learn that the family involved was his own, and that the scale of the tragedy was almost unimaginable: Zaid’s brother Saad, his wife Iqbal and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf had all been shot at gunpoint in their car in a remote beauty spot a few miles from Lake Annecy in the French Alps. The couple’s eldest daughter, Zainab, seven, had been shot, pistol-whipped and left for dead. Zainab’s terrified four-year-old sister Zeena was discovered inside the car, sheltering under the skirt of her deceased mother, eight hours after French police first arrived. Alongside the car, a French cyclist called Sylvain Mollier had also been assassinated. The brutal and senseless deaths of a holidaying British family made headlines around the world, but Zaid’s grief was quickly compounded by another horror, as he found himself placed under suspicion. “All of a sudden you are at the heart of a storm,” Zaid, now 63, recalls. “You’re trying to understand what happened, then the next minute you are being accused of something you know nothing about.’’ The approaching 10-year anniversary of the tragedy in September is one reason why Zaid has agreed to take part in a three-part Channel 4 documentary looking at the still unsolved murders. “I needed to tell my side of the story, to show how much this very hurtful episode in our lives affected me and my loved ones,” says Zaid. A genial, articulate man, Zaid’s anger at what he experienced remains palpable to this day, along with his grief. The al-Hilli brothers were close, a bond forged by fleeing their home in Iraq for the UK in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s power grab in 1968. “We did not want to leave, but we had to,” says Zaid. “Before then my uncle was imprisoned and tortured. He came out of prison brain-damaged. You felt like you were always being watched.” Three years younger than him, Saad, who Zaid fondly describes as a “rascal’’, was swifter to adjust to life in the UK. “He was more outgoing, he made friends a lot more quickly,’’ Zaid reflects. “I’m the quiet one.’’ Both brothers ultimately settled here, raising their families not far from each other in Surrey. Saad, who was 50 when he was killed, worked as a design engineer for a technology company, while Zaid found success as an accountant. He was at work when he received a call from a friend telling him that the family he had heard about on the news bulletin that morning was in fact his brother and his sister-in-law as well as her mother. “I was thinking it was impossible, and I went to the nearest police station hoping to hear it wasn’t them,’’ he remembers. Surrey Police confirmed his worst fears, in circumstances that were hard to fathom: at least 21 bullets had been fired in what appeared to be a hitman-style execution and French police believed the al-Hillis were the target. “They immediately dismissed Sylvain Mollier as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but at the same time said they didn’t have any answers,’’ Zaid says. “These are two contradictory statements. How can you dismiss something completely, while saying at the same time that you don’t know what’s happened?’’ It wasn’t long before the police crystallised their view: after hours of co-operating willingly in interviews as a witness, Zaid was publicly named by French police as a suspect. “I did something like 30 hours of interviews, and I did them in good faith – but what I was saying privately to them, in confidence, was being broadcast against me,’’ he recalls. In particular, the disclosure that he and his brother had argued over their inheritance from their late parents in the run-up to Saad’s death was subsequently presented to the public as a “violent disagreement” by the police. ‘‘The word ‘dispute’ gave them a reason to continue with this bizarre witch hunt,’’ says Zaid now. “As far as I am concerned, there was no dispute. We had a disagreement.’’ Zaid also had a cast-iron alibi, but this did nothing to stop the French state prosecutor Eric Maillaud publicly casting doubts on his innocence. Besieged night and day by media, and unable to see his nieces, who were under armed guard in a French hospital, Zaid struggled not to succumb to paranoia. “You start becoming suspicious. My real worry was whether they were going to produce false evidence,’’ he says. “It was horrendous. I think the thing that kept me sane was going to work, and the support of my colleagues and friends. The people who know me didn’t believe any of it from the beginning.’’ Today, Zaid is clear that he believes there was a racist element to the investigation. “From the way things were handled, I think it is always easy to blame the outsider, the foreigner. I think the French authorities would have behaved completely differently if the names were different,’’ he says. He points out that other theories bandied around by the press seemed to be rooted in distrust of the family’s nationality: Saad’s work for a satellite technology company led to him being accused of being a spy under surveillance from the secret service, and the discovery of a Swiss bank account containing nearly a million euros in the name of Saad and Zaid’s father was cited as dirty money linked to Saddam’s regime. “They even used the fact that Zainab was found outside the vehicle, suggesting her father had left her outside to save himself,’’ says Zaid. ‘‘It’s such a despicable statement.’’ Nine months after his family were slaughtered and, following months of unsuccessful attempts by the French police to have Zaid brought to France for questioning, he was arrested by Surrey Police on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. On the advice of his lawyer he gave a ‘no comment’ interview. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you just have to stand your ground,’’ he says now. ‘‘I wasn’t going to be intimidated. Our family were intimidated in 1970 [in Iraq] and I wasn’t going to be intimidated again by anyone.’’ After 24 hours in custody, Zaid was released on bail, but it would be another seven months before Surrey Police announced there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. “There was huge relief, of course, but also anger at what they had put us through,” he says. He is particularly damning of the French police, pointing out the catalogue of errors that hampered their investigation – from lost evidence to contaminated forensics – as well as their blinkered thinking. His frustration is echoed by retired Surrey detective Mark Preston, who speaks candidly in the documentary about tensions between their force and their French counterparts over the latter’s dogged focus on Zaid. For his own part, Zaid has always believed that Sylvain Mollier was the true target, citing an alleged “vow of silence” by those close to him and a subsequent cover-up by the French authorities. “I think they knew from day one what happened, and they have hidden it,’’ he insists. ‘‘The whole thing was a deception. It means it’s very difficult to move on sometimes. I still live it every day – and my brother is with me every day.’’ He takes consolation in his own family, and in the company of his nieces – now thriving teenagers who live under a different identity. “They’re lovely girls,” he says. “They’re doing well and they are happy.” Zaid, too, has found his own happiness after moving from Surrey to the coast. “I’ve got the sea, I’ve got nice countryside, I’ve got good friends and grandchildren,” he says. “Sometimes you have to be grateful for what you’ve got in life.” Murder in the Alps airs on Channel 4 on Sunday 26th June at 9pm. Check out our dedicated documentary hub, our guide to the best true crime series, or see what else is on with our TV Guide. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times podcast with Jane Garvey.
Mary Berry on the secret of The Great British Bake Off’s success
GBBO is in the running for the Radio Times Audience Award at this year's TV Baftas, but what's the show's secret? Mary Berry explains...
Mary Berry doesn’t hesitate when asked why The Great British Bake Off has so robustly captured the public imagination. “Viewers can relate to it,” she says. “The people in it could be your sister, your son, your next-door neighbor. The public identifies with the contestants and like to watch their journey through the show. “Just yesterday I was walking down the street and two young men came out of the pub and asked if they could have a photo with me. They were only around 20, but genuine Bake Off fans. I love that. I think the show brings families of all generations together on the sofa.” Bake Offhas been nominated for the Radio TimesAudience Award by Bafta judges for the third year running, and next season makes the move from BBC2 to BBC1. Mary says the change will make no difference to the format when filming starts just after Easter. “All the values are the same – it’s about people’s passion for baking. The contestants put their heart and soul into it and that always moves me. Many of them have full-time jobs but stay up all night perfecting their skills.” After the marvels conjured up by last year’s winner Francis Quinn, one wonders how the standards can continue to rise. “The bar is already pretty high, but I expect we will see the contestants in the next series becoming even more inventive,” says Mary. That doesn’t mean, however, that the nation’s amateur bakers should worry. “It’s not always about showstoppers,” she says. “People send me pictures of their versions of cakes from Bake Off – the icing may be a bit wobbly but it doesn’t matter. It’s wonderful that people are inspired.” The Great British Bake Off Easter Masterclass is on Saturday BBC2 at 12 noon, with two further Masterclasses on Wednesday and Friday BBC2 at 12 noon The Radio Times Audience Award is the only prize at this year's Television Awards chosen by the public. The shortlist was drawn up by a panel of top TV critics but the final decision lies with you. Your winner will be announced on Sunday 18 May 2014 on BBC One. Voting is open until midday on Thursday 15 May at radiotimes.com/bafta Follow @RadioTimes