For an hour-long Christmas Coming Home, you need a big name; and who better than Hollywood movie star Ioan Gruffudd. I was thrilled to hear Ioan wanted to do the show, as I’m a huge fan of his work. I’ve seen all the Hornblower episodes on DVD countless times and my five-year-old Charlie and I are big fans of comic books and Ioan’s character Mr Fantastic in the Marvel movies.
But before any Coming Home goes into production, we need one important thing; a family tree. Ioan’s tree was a great challenge for our genealogist Mike Churchill-Jones, who put in months of research.
Genealogy expert Mike Churchill-Jones
When Mike and I met up to discuss the stories he’d discovered, it turned out that Ioan’s tree revealed more than we could possibly have imagined. Mike had discovered heroes from both the First and Second World Wars, he uncovered a great family mystery and finally, a direct connection to medieval Royalty. With all this to work with, it was going to be a packed one-hour show.
Ioan lives in LA but he managed to find a window of opportunity to join us in South Wales for filming. In the weeks preparing for filming, we spent a lot of time with Ioan’s mum and dad, Gill and Peter. They live near Cardiff and they kindly let us visit to look through their photo albums and even meet Ioan’s remarkable grandmother Eiry, who was 99-years-old at the time. She was a nurse in London during the Blitz and she had some incredible stories of her time, helping soldiers during the war.
So with a filming date set and the stories all sorted, we were ready to shoot.
Ioan flew in on a Friday and was due to film with us from the Sunday. He was certainly jet-lagged when we met, but being the professional he is, he fought through it and gave everything he had to the production. He was clearly passionate, not just about Wales, but about his family too. He expressed that it was important to him, to pass on this information to his two daughters who were born and growing up in America.
Over the filming days, we travelled all over south and west Wales – eagle-eyed viewers will recognise Tenby, Pontyberem, Margam Abbey near Port Talbot, Kidwelly, Cardiff and the family home in Pentyrch.
Everything was going well until we received some very sad news on day three of filming. We had planned to take Ioan to meet a Normandy veteran, who was living in a care home in Brecon. Bill Speake, stormed the beaches of Normandy at the tender age of 18 and made it safely inland to complete his mission. But on the day of filming I received a phone call to say that sadly Bill had passed away during the night. We were devastated by the news; firstly for the loss, but also because Ioan wouldn’t get the chance to meet with Bill and we knew Bill was looking forward to meeting Ioan and recounting his experiences.
However, several weeks before filming, I had travelled to meet Bill and filmed an interview with him at that time. He was great company and I was in awe of his experiences of D-Day, which he remembered like they were yesterday. So even though we couldn’t take Ioan to meet with Bill; we were able to show Ioan the interview, which we have included in the final programme with permission from Bill’s family.
There were many highlights for me in making this programme. Taking Ioan back to his comprehensive school, Glantaf in Llandaff North, was a lot of fun. He bumped into several of his old teachers, including the man who helped him through his maths GCSE. He also spoke with current pupils and even took a cheeky slide down the school banister, like he did back in his school days. Flying down the banister was something he always got into trouble for, but never stopped doing. I’d urge viewers not to miss this bit in the programme, because Ioan talks about just how naughty he was in school, when his very own father was the deputy head!
Other highlights included filming Ioan with his grandmother Eiry, shooting aerial shots of Ioan at the very top of Kidwelly Castle and enjoying the beautiful weather on North Beach in Tenby.
The big surprise has been left until the very end of the programme; and to say Ioan was in shock, is an understatement. To verify this amazing story, we brought in historian Gerald Morgan, who specialises in medieval history. We took Ioan to meet with Gerald, who revealed the incredible story to him. It’s one of our best ever moments on Coming Home.
I’m really proud of this documentary for a number of reasons - not just because of the great stories and locations. But because Ioan was completely involved in each and every moment and not only gave us his time, but also allowed us access to his family in Wales and in Los Angeles. I hope you enjoy this full hour of Coming Home.
Coming Home with Ioan Gruffudd airs on Wednesday, 21st December at 9.00pm, BBC One Wales.
