He was a master at making nervous contestants sweat on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? But as bars crashed shut behind him, locking Chris Tarrant in a dingy Kenyan jail cell, it was his turn to feel the heat.
He was on his last day of filming for Extreme Railways in Kenya when armed officers turned up, took him and his crew to the local police station and threw them in a cell – never telling them what they had done wrong.
More terrifying was the menacing band of criminals in the next cell.
Chris, 74, says: “There were these very large Kenyan men in the other cell leering at us and telling us the things they were going to do to us when we shared their cell that night."
He went on: “They kept calling me ‘sweet cheeks’, which I didn’t like. It was bloody scary.
“One of the crew said to me, ‘Do you want to phone a friend?’ I said, ‘f*** off! Not now’. We were genuinely frightened, they were big blokes and you hear of people just disappearing.”
It happened at the end of Chris’s journey on the “Lunatic Line”, so-called because of its cost, which was built by the British across Kenya to the shores of Lake Victoria. Channel 5 viewers can see his travels on the line tomorrow.
It was a 766-mile trip, which included a stop-off at a notorious spot where, in 1898, 140 workers were eaten by two man-eating lions.
Chris felt he was being thrown to the lions during his run-in with the police.
He says: “I was doing a piece to camera on the last day of filming on the banks of Lake Victoria, and we were surrounded by men in camouflage jackets holding these big guns, saying we didn’t have permission to film there.
“We had all the documents showing we had been granted permission.” He thinks they feared they were spies trying to film a new warship moored nearby.
He says: “They asked us to go back to the police station just to sign a piece of paper, saying it was all a misunderstanding. But when we got there they showed us to this bit round the back and then these bars came down. They took our passports and our phones.
“Then, at 4pm, a policeman came and started handing back our passports, saying he was sorry about the misunderstanding. We ran out of the police station, and raced to the airport to catch our flights. It was terrifying.
“It’s a lovely country but, I am not sure I’ll ever go back.”
Chris might have found himself in even worse trouble if he had gone ahead with his next trip for the Extreme Railways series. He says: “It would have taken us through Russia, Mongolia and China. We had the plane tickets, the visas, everything.
“Then news of coronavirus began to emerge and we decided to pull it at the last minute. Thank God we did. We would have ended up in the middle of China, maybe even in Wuhan, at the end of March.”
Chris, who is in the high-risk category for Covid-19 after suffering a stroke six years ago, has been shielding with long-term partner Jane Bird at his Berkshire home.
Lockdown forced workaholic Chris to take it easy, but he now says he is feeling under pressure again – thanks to PM Boris Johnson ’s Covid rules, which mean he can only invite two of his six children for Christmas.
Chris, who has seven grandchildren, says: “Our house normally heaves with people for three or four days at Christmas. Now I’m in a rather invidious situation, thank you, Boris."
He went on: “I’ve got six kids, so I’ve now got to choose my two favourites, which is really difficult. One of them rang the other day. She said, ‘Am I coming, Daddy?’ I joked, ‘No, you’re not in the top two, you’re not even in the top six’. But it’s something I’ll have to do, it’s really hard.
“So they’re still waiting and I still haven’t made my decision. I haven’t got my head around it yet.” It is freezing outside, but Chris is speaking to me from his garden. He says: “My wifi’s gone mad inside, this is the only place I can get a signal. I’ve got eight jumpers and a coat on.
“It must be Boris’s fault. I blame Boris for everything.”
He misses his family, but admits lockdown has forced him to slow down.
Chris says: “My big son would always give me a massive bear hug when he saw me, and we can’t do any of that.
“We have a nice cosy outhouse where the kids and their families take it in turns to stay, but the little ones always want a cuddle with Grandpa. They know they can’t and have been really good, saying, ‘Don’t come any closer, Grandpa’.
“But apart form that it’s been all right. We’ve got a lot of land here, a couple of pools, woods and fields, so I know I’m much luckier than many. I’ve been going fishing twice a week. It’s made me slow down.” It has also brought him closer to Jane. He says: “We’ve spent more time together in the last year than we have in the last 14 years, and I think we’ve had about two quarrels, which is extraordinary.
“We’ve become very close, more in love. I’ve taught her a lot about the wildlife on our land, too. Now she can tell the difference between a roe deer and a fallow deer, a rid kite and a buzzard, which she couldn’t do at all at the start of the year.”
But Chris, whose six children are from his two previous marriages, says he and Jane have no plans to wed. He says: “We’ve been together for a long time. We’re great, I just don’t see any reason to get married, and nor does she.”
Chris was a teacher before going into TV. He was a host on Tiswas and TV-am, before joining Capital Radio. He hosted Millionaire for 14 years.
And seven years after he left, the catchphrases still follow him wherever he goes. He says: “It’s the ‘phone a friend’ one that’s the worst. I had one this morning and I’d only been out for 10 minutes. They go, ‘Wanna phone a friend?’ then they go bright red.
“I don’t mind, it’s part of putting yourself in people’s living rooms, but every day of my life?
“Jeremy Clarkson’s been doing it for two years and I’m still getting it.”
It probably didn’t help that he featured in TV series Quiz this year, being played by Michael Sheen in the drama about the “coughing major” scandal on Millionaire. He says: “Michael was good, especially the body language. I was there thinking, ‘Bloody hell, Sheeny, I really do that.”
Chris is looking forward to getting back to work, brushing aside his 2014 health scare, when he had a stroke.
He says: “I had a nasty scare, and came out the other side. I don’t drink whisky any more. I think I’ve got the right balance now. Things will be fine – if we manage to survive Christmas.”
- Tarrant on the African Express, tomorrow, 8pm, Channel 5
