East of Croydon

by Sue Perkins

  There is a strange tendency among us TV presenters to pretend we know it all, adopting a mask of clear-cut professionalism and unquestionable authority. Of course, if that were really true, if we had any real authority, we’d have proper jobs and not be preening about on the goggle box. My travels taught me the most invaluable lesson of all: I’m a fool. So why not save time and be honest about it? To pretend otherwise borders on proper stupidity.

  Instead of meeting a hostile tribe in a highland rainforest clearing and acting like it’s all rather familiar, I want to own my ignorance. I want to learn everything, feel everything, acknowledge my fortunate, cushioned existence, in the face of those who struggle.

  The most glorious and the most difficult thing about my job is that I get to observe. I get to watch some of the most exciting, breath-taking and curious things on the planet; I also get to watch some of the most cruel and heart-breaking things too.

  I often think about war photographers, capturing that moment when the bullet pierces a skull, when the napalm ignites a village – and I have always wondered, ‘Did you hang around just waiting for that moment? Why didn’t you intervene? Why didn’t you do something? Did commemorating that suffering for posterity, so that others might learn from it, ameliorate the fact you stood by and did nothing?’

  I ask myself that question. Sometimes I have had to watch impossibly difficult and painful scenarios: death, abuse, cruelty, grinding poverty. Sometimes I, too, did nothing. Sometimes there was nothing to do. Other times the reality was that the only job I had, the only positive contribution I could make, was to observe, to hear the testimonies, to bear witness.

  Some of the things I encountered were too traumatic for screening, too awful to show. There seemed no purpose to broadcasting suffering without context or solution. Equally, sometimes things were too silly and childish to warrant the edit. But even if television’s lens can’t encompass it all, if the frame only captures a corner of the experience, the human eye sees the full panorama. I saw everything.

  Here it is.

  3. It’s Not All My Fault

  In my head, television is made like this: I go to a place. I eat food, get drunk, have a dance – I share an intimate cultural moment with a stranger. I might even cry. Then, I go home.

  Six months later, as if by magic, it appears on the telly.

  I’ve since been told that there is an awful lot more to making a show than popping this old meat puppet in front of a camera. So, before we begin, let me introduce you to the team who really make it happen.

  I haven’t changed their names because they are far from innocent.

  Steve. Steve is the boss. He is the Charlie to our Angels but 25 per cent more real. Steve and I have a lot in common. He despises television and all it stands for – and so do I. Steve is obsessed with television and all it stands for – and so am I.

  Steve is a media Eeyore. He doesn’t just worry that the sky is falling in, but that the sky is falling in and the industry is so rapidly deskilling he might not have a decent enough crew to make a six-part BAFTA-winning documentary series about it.

  Steve loves surfing, his family and anything to do with Wales. He is super-clever. Like, super-clever. He has a particular interest in the intricacies of rural agribusiness, and films directed by him will invariably feature sequences devoted to nuanced farming techniques in the middle of nowhere. Steve cannot understand why I don’t share his fascination for all things agricultural, and when he sighs on set I know that he is dreaming of working with a proper presenter who asks about the complexities of irrigation in terrace systems and doesn’t just make fart jokes in a forest.

  Olly is our sound guy. He’s a rarity in the business, as he actually listens to every word that’s recorded. I know that for a fact, because, after a twenty-minute piece to camera about religion in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, he turned to me and said, ‘What the fuck was all that about?’ You see? All ears.

  Olly has seen things a human being should never see – namely the contents of my trousers. His job is, essentially, to stick wires where the sun don’t shine. As a result, he is very familiar with all my catchphrases, such as ‘Remember I always go commando’ and ‘Sorry, I forgot to shave again.’

  Olly has an anecdote for all occasions, which comes in handy when you’re spending every waking hour with someone for weeks on end. Sometimes I love his stories so much, I’ll make him repeat them again and again – like the time he went for a run in Tokyo and got lost for thirteen hours. Or the time he detonated a BBC controller’s conservatory in a rather over-zealous fireworks display.

  Olly’s superpower is his packing capacity. He brings everything, and I mean everything. I once saw him casually bring out a NutriBullet in the Sunderbans (the low-lying islands on the border of India and Bangladesh), attach it to the loose plug socket and pull, from a waterproof pouch, some diced melon, a punnet of raspberries and a handful of chia seeds.

  Matt, our cameraman, is a cherubic Bristolian with a dazzling array of neckerchiefs. I have never heard him swear. Ever. Once, he was filming some monkeys playing on a bridge in Rishikesh. One had nicked an Hermès scarf from a passing tourist, and was trying to put it on. Matt laughed so hard that the monkey dropped the scarf and ran towards him, baring his teeth in full attack mode. Still, no swearing.

  Matt makes the world look beautiful. However shocking and saddening the environment, he will always find a way to bring out the dignity of people or the richness of the landscape.

  He’s also amazing at walking backwards – trusting that the assistant guiding him by his belt loops will keep him from harm, warn him when a step is approaching, and steer him past the inevitable piles of dog, pig and cow shit. Eighty-seven per cent of the time his trust is well placed. In the 13 per cent likelihood that he will end up tumbling into cack, he always has a spare pair of trainers at the ready.

  Matt’s superpower is that he is able to find spaghetti bolognese wherever he is in the world, be it remote hill tribe or floating village. Also, he is very good at making sure the colour saturation settings on his camera minimize my jowls. And for that, if nothing else, he is family to me.

  Vicky is super-model tall and, quite simply, the best producer in the world. Vicky lives her life according to her own special lexicon, where the word ‘No’ doesn’t exist. The phrases ‘I’m really tired’, ‘Should we really be eating that?’ and ‘I’m not sure that’s entirely safe’ are also, seemingly, not recognized.

  You can go to Vicky in the middle of the night and she will have whatever you need to fix stuff. She’ll put up a mosquito net in the pitch dark, she’ll diagnose and treat minor ailments – she’ll even accompany you for a wee at 2 a.m. in the middle of a Tibetan plain to make sure the wild dogs don’t eat you.

  Vicky’s superpower is that she is never fazed. Not even when you make her come round to your room at three in the morning saying you can’t sleep because of the noise of the electricity pylons. Not even when she has to break it to you that the noise is merely cicadas and that we are in a rural hamlet hundreds of miles from an electricity substation.

  Steve and Vicky were aided by a team of brilliant assistant producers and researchers whose job was twofold:

  First, they had to lie to me – 24/7.

  If the walk is long, tell me it’s short.

  If I see a snake, tell me it’s not a snake but a piece of rope with diamond markings on its back that is moving in the breeze.

  If I ask how long the day is going to be, tell me it’s nearly done.

  If I ask why the hotel has no running water or electricity, tell me it’s an off-grid paradise where I can truly commune with nature.

  Then, when all these things turn out to be untrue and I start grumbling, the second phase of their job kicks in.

  Feed me. Just feed me.

  Then, and only then, will I shut up.

  This book is for them, the production team and crew, and for all the local guides, fixers, drivers, porters and helpers who made l
ife better for us during our travels.

  Thank you.

  VIETNAM

  * * *

  4. That Noo-dle That You Do So Well

  I landed at Ho Chi Minh City, wheeling a suitcase so large it looked like I was using it to perform a magic trick.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, my assistant is now locked inside the Samsonite, and if you walk around you will see there is no way for her to get in or out. Now let’s see whether she can survive the baggage-handling.’

  I was the furthest east I’d ever been, if you exclude the time I took mushrooms and thought I was one of Kubla Khan’s handmaidens.

  I was the furthest in any direction I’d ever been.

  A gaggle of can-do Vietnamese lads were there to meet me outside the airport terminal, but even they struggled to load my outsized luggage onto the van. I am willing to admit that I had somewhat over-packed, and that the industrial waders, oxygen tent and satellite tracking system may have been a bridge too far.

  I got into the back of their jeep and we drove around for what felt like hours. Ten miles or so into the journey, it struck me that I had no idea where I was going, who these people were and whether, indeed, I’d even got into the right car. Still, I wasn’t fazed, thanks to the diazepam I’d necked some thirty-nine thousand feet above Ukraine. I am terrified of flying, you see – but I do it nonetheless (screw you, scared, sad voice within).

  That night I lay on a lumpy hostel mattress for six hours and pretended to sleep, my senses struggling to adjust to the thick, hot air and the frenzied airborne traffic of insects and birds. This continent was going to be my home for the next three thousand miles: I’d better start getting used to it.

  The next morning we headed to Can Tho, where I transferred onto a wooden boat with a precarious motor dangling from its rear like an industrial haemorrhoid. It was time to start filming.

  Up to that point, my combined seafaring experiences had been:

  – Getting on the Woolwich Ferry with my nan, c. 1976.

  – Crossing the Irish Sea.

  – Taking a pedalo out in Málaga.

  Looking back at that footage, I can remember how out of my depth I felt. I couldn’t get my bearings. I couldn’t put words to the sensory bombardment. I was so bewildered and excited you can barely make out what I’m saying amid the gabble.

  On the delta’s edge was some of the most precarious real estate I’d ever seen – rows of wooden shacks perched on bamboo stilts, the walls and roofs clad with a patchwork of tarpaulin, rice bags and corrugated metal. Not one single element of their construction had been fashioned in a straight line. In fact, the houses all looked like they’d fallen from the sky and crumpled on impact with the river bed.

  Our vessel nudged the edge of one of the dwellings, and came to an abrupt halt. I made a rather ungainly leap from the boat onto the rickety stairs leading to the main platform, which seemed to have been constructed at a near-forty-five-degree angle. The whole structure creaked and wobbled as I entered.

  ‘Hi, I’m Sue,’ I said, in execrable Vietnamese.

  A woman roared with laughter, her mouth widening to reveal a somewhat sparse assembly of teeth.

  ‘Di Hei,’ she replied, and hugged me.

  How lovely, I thought, as I melted into her. Someone who is as tactile as I am. I love her already.

  Arm in arm, we wandered further into the house. Her entire extended family were there to greet me.

  I could have headed home that day and, in that snapshot, had a microcosm of everything I would witness in Asia over the next few years. The wife, bent double over the fire, her face burnished by a lifetime of wood-smoke. The silent, sick husband, looking out over the water with that thousand-yard stare. The whip-thin kids, running everywhere, the backs of their heads routinely slapped by a legion of aunties, uncles and grandparents. A million shiny black pupils trained on you, looking at the vastness of you, the wealth of you. Looking at what you were and what you had. At everything you had.

  I looked down at my new shoes, purchased online for their robust waterproof capability. Everyone around me was barefoot, their toenails eroded to nothing by the acidity of the river water. I watched the kids, deft and graceful, sprint across the narrow wooden beams that connected the houses. I looked down at my bloated belly, courtesy of a defunct pituitary and unwise dietary decisions. I felt embarrassed about a lifetime of softness, of ease. I felt like a pappy, white giant.

  I said my hellos to the assembled clan and launched, unbidden, into a hi-energy game of pat-a-cake with the youngest grandchild, who was so cute she was in danger of detonating my ovaries.

  The room contained several makeshift sleeping platforms, all of which appeared to be adjustable. This proved to be essential, as during the monsoon the river levels are so high, the water flows right through the house.

  ‘The more it comes up, the higher we make our bed,’ said Di Hei, pragmatically.

  She pointed to the tidemarks on the bedposts where the river had come and gone.

  ME: Do you notice the climate changing?

  I was desperate to impress upon Steve that his new presenter was capable of sticking to the environmental message of the film, and not just there to hug random children.

  DI HEI: It’s the highest it has ever been this year.

  She pointed to a line some four feet above the mattress.

  ME: But that line’s almost at the ceiling! What if the water keeps on rising? Where do you sleep?

  She gestured towards the roof and laughed. She started miming swimming. Then she did an impression of someone drowning. It was starting to feel like a rather twisted, climate-change edition of Give Us A Clue.

  And then, before the atmosphere gave way to darkness, she laughed that toothless laugh again, and reached over to hug me.

  We returned the next morning at the edge of first light, the moon and sun still fighting over the sky. All was silent, except for the sound of our oars cutting through the water. By the time we reached the opposite bank, the moon had conceded and a thin band of yellow light on the horizon had begun to illuminate the way ahead.

  My first thought as I ventured inside was Jesus, this building’s on fire – black smoke billowed through the tarpaulin roof and the cracks in the timber. There can’t be any survivors in this heat and smoke. No one could survive this conflagration. I gestured down to Steve, but he seemed unconcerned and waved me onwards.

  A familiar face materialized through the acrid plumes.

  ‘Xin chao!’ I bellowed at it. ‘Xin chao!’

  ‘Xin chao!’ muttered the face, vignetted in carbon. Then a bony hand appeared, grabbed my wrist and dragged me forwards into the murk.

  My eyes tickled as they adjusted to the culinary inferno raging around me.

  It was four thirty in the morning. Di Hei had already been up, cooking, for at least two hours. On the floor, vast iron pots of pungent grey broth sat bubbling over the open flames. There was a selection of boiled meats, grey, beige, yellow, and more grey. There were buckets of white noodles and a dazzling array of condiments. The smoke was burning the inside of my nostrils and I was starting to fight for breath. Through the gaps in the floorboards, I could dimly make out the acrid water lapping just centimetres beneath. I guess this was as close to a fire safety measure as we were going to get.

  The little girl approached. I wanted to play with her again, but it became clear from Di Hei’s percussive tuts that there was no time for chat. We had work to do.

  The Di Hei I met that morning was a different woman altogether. Gone were the easy laughs and constant hugging. This Di Hei was thrillingly strict. She was there for one thing, and one thing only – business.

  The cooking seemed to be finished. She slapped my arms briskly and bellowed into my face, her eyes sparkling like embers.

  The translation came back.

  DI HEI: OK! You! Time to sell!

  I gulped nervously.

  I am useless at selling. Always have been. T
hat may come as a surprise to you, since I’m a trappy little bastard – but, in truth, I lack the killer instinct and retain a distinct cynicism about the eternal quest for material wealth. I have had minimal sales experience, but what I have had, I have loathed with every fibre of my being.

  The moment I finished my A levels, I wanted to work. I wanted to get as far away from a desk and a book as possible. Being young and naive, it hadn’t really occurred to me that there might possibly be a disconnect between wanting to do something and being capable of doing something.

  I answered a rather shady ad in the Croydon Advertiser, which promised MAXIMUM WAGES! and MINIMUM TRAINING! As a diehard fan of both of those concepts, especially in conjunction with one another, I rang the number provided, and was connected to a man named Gary, in deepest Addiscombe.

  Throughout our conversation Gary sounded like he was running a marathon. Angrily. He said something about turning up the next morning to his house for a briefing, before putting the phone down mid-wheeze.

  The next morning my mate Neil dropped me off at the estate. There was a gaggle of weedy-looking blokes outside Gary’s house, waiting. As I walked up to join them, I noticed the car in the driveway was on bricks. After a few minutes, Gary wandered out, like a prize-fighter greeting his adoring crowd, and sat atop the bonnet, his expansive belly quivering before him.

  ‘Right,’ he said, his gelatinous gut finally juddering to a halt over the waistband of his jeans.

  GARY: Good mornin’, one and all. You don’t know it yet, but you lot is my crack team.

  Are we? I thought. Really? But I don’t know them. And I don’t know you. And you still sound angry, even though you are technically smiling.

  GARY: I was standing where you is now. I didn’t have nothing. Not a sausage. Now, I can do whatever I want. I’m me own boss. Isn’t that right?