Interview with Simon Reeve

Interview with Simon Reeve!

​December 15th, 2013

I got the incredible opportunity to chat to Simon Reeve about his brilliant new series on BBC one, Pilgrimage, where he takes us on a fascinating journey through Norfolk, Lincoln, Spain (Santiago de Compostella), Italy, France and Jerusalem to find out about our ancestors’ urge to go on fugacious pilgrimages.

Throughout the 3 part series, he meets modern-day pilgrims to ask them about their motivation behind their “adventures” as he calls them, meeting some rather captivating people along the way. Take the utterly dedicated 61-year old Lindsey, carrying his 25kg cross to send out the message of Christ’s suffering. Simon admits he’s not a man of religion, but was really eager to meet people and find out how these people lived and travelled. It really was another brilliant series, he has such an ease with people and a likeability that makes you want to make the journey with him.

I was personally excited about episode two, where he travelled through Northern Spain where my Spanish family live! Very proud that it has become one of the most popular Pilgrimage walks, which can take up to anything from a few weeks to a month. The remains of St James are said to have been found in the Cathedral in Santiago. Never knew it held so many secrets…

Luckily he has another series on the way! The tea trail shows Simon heading to east Africa to uncover the stories behind the nation’s favourite drink. While we drink millions of cups of the stuff each day, how many of us know where our tea actually comes from? The surprising answer is that most of the leaves that go into our everyday teabags do not come from India or China but are bought from an auction in the coastal city of Mombasa in Kenya, and as a tea lover myself I was actually very surprised!

From Mobassa, Simon traverses through the awe-inspiring Kenyan and Ugandan landscape, meeting several of the millions of people who pick, prepare, package and export our tea to the world. There are some darker tails to be told, however, about prostitution and child labour, so he really does explore every aspect of this particular trail.

He then follows up with the coffee trail and Simon heads to Vietnam to uncover the stories behind the energy boosting morning up-lifting drink. Again rather surprisingly it is not Brazil, Colombia or Jamaica where most of it comes from, but Vietnam! 80% of the coffee that us British drink is the instant, cheaper coffee bean, (not the more expensive one found in Starbucks!) We see how in Hanoi, after the war nearly 40 years ago, there was a massive surge in coffee growing across the dishevelled landscape as the demand increased and people took the opportunity to earn a little more. But, as we shall see, this has had a great impact once again on the landscape, and some experts think that it’s a matter of time before the quality of the soil will be simply too poor for anything to grow at all.

 

It really was incredible talking to someone who is so well travelled and has such a respect for people and the environment, such a gentleman, so thank you Simon and good luck with all your travels! He has got another program coming on soon called Sacred Rivers so keep your eyes peeled for that! Check out my interview with him!