22-05-2025
Jeremy Vine: The Cornish beach we'll never forget — for the wrong reasons
Jeremy Vine, 60, is one of the country's most acclaimed broadcasters with his own shows on Radio 2 and Channel 5. He grew up in Cheam, Surrey, with his brother, Tim, a comedian, and his sister, Sonya. After completing a journalism training course he quickly became a regular on TV and radio, hosting everything from election coverage to Crimewatch. Vine has been married to the journalist Rachel Schofield since 2002. They have two daughters and live in west London.
After we turned 18, some of my mates and I decided to go on a Club 18-30 holiday in Sitges, Spain. Your 18th birthday was a big deal in the early Eighties, because it meant you could go on one of these fabled party holidays. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out quite as we'd planned, because when we got there we discovered that we'd booked a gay resort. But, c'mon, four lads on their first holiday away from their parents — sun, sea and all that. And the really strong memory I have from that holiday is how brilliant the music was in the bars and on the radio. After 1976 and the start of punk, my generation really was spoilt. Looking out over the Mediterranean, listening to Elvis Costello with a cold beer … I didn't imagine life would get any better.
Soon after that trip I became a journalist and ended up working for the BBC's Today programme. That was in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down, and one morning I got a call from the office saying, 'Grab your passport and go to Heathrow.' The Soviet Union was collapsing and I was sent into the Russian heartland to interview ordinary people. I ended up flying to Tomsk, a city in Siberia.
Tomsk had been the site of a nuclear arms factory and a lot of it looked like the surface of the moon. Everything I saw seemed to be falling apart, but nobody there was allowed to say things were 'broken'. It was always remont, the Russian for 'being repaired', but the economy was literally unravelling in real time. I remember going for a haircut and the ruble had lost 10 per cent of its value by the time I got up to pay.
But there, among all the chaos, was our very clean, very grand-looking hotel, surrounded by luxury cars and Zil limousines. The food was great, and service was wonderful. I said to our guide, 'How come nothing's happened to the hotel?' He explained that it was the government hotel where all the local dignitaries and politicians stayed. And me!
• 24 of the best holiday villas in Spain
When you become a foreign correspondent it gets hard to distinguish between work and travel. I was the BBC's Africa Correspondent from 1997 to 2000 and ended up visiting 18 countries. I used to call it a high-speed holiday: Gabon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, sleeping under the stars in Congo-Brazzaville … and spending an afternoon with Robert Mugabe in Harare. It was one of the last interviews he ever did with the BBC because he decided that we were all gay gangsters or something, but he came across as a surprisingly intelligent, sophisticated man. Very cultured, quoting Shakespeare and telling me how often he went to the theatre.
Sadly, things weren't going quite so well for ordinary Zimbabweans. The phrase I kept hearing was, 'We are suffering.' In fact, you heard that throughout most of Africa. At times, there were revolutions taking place before our eyes. In Lesotho we came under fire as we drove past the barracks and one of the cameramen had to hide in a field for the night while the soldiers looked for him. It's at moments like that when you realise just how pale our own news agenda is, compared with what's happening around the world.
• Read our full guide to South Africa
Despite all that, I fell in love with Africa and was actually back in South Africa recently for a holiday with my wife and youngest daughter. The culture is fascinating, the people are amazing and the drive from Franschhoek to Cape Town will take you through some of the most beautiful landscapes you will ever see in your life. We stayed at the Mont Rochelle Hotel in Franschhoek and came across a rather incongruous tourist attraction called the Franschhoek Motor Museum. Over 200 vehicles, dating from the late-1800s, including a fleet of high-end sports cars lined up in the middle of the mountainous winelands. I'm not a petrolhead, but I would recommend it to anyone.
I've seen more of this planet than I ever thought I'd get to see, but my heart is still drawn to the West Country, where I occasionally potter about on my electric bike — and am very grateful for the assistance on some of those 45-degree hills. Every one of my childhood holidays was spent at a self-catering place near Lusty Glaze Beach in Newquay. These days, most stories about Newquay involve teenagers getting hammered on ketamine, but back then all we had was the Radio 1 Roadshow.
I must mention the seagulls. Lusty Glaze Beach and the Vine family all stretched out in the sunshine, listening to the gentle lap of the waves. Suddenly this flock comes dive-bombing in, aiming for us. The only people that got hit were me, my brother Tim, my sister Sonya, and Mum and Dad. I can still hear the splat as I looked up and saw a direct hit on my mum's head. For a 13-year-old, there is not much funnier than seeing your mum's new hairdo ruined by seagull poo.
Murder on Line One by Jeremy Vine (HarperCollins £20) is out now. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
