My Greek odyssey (with my mother!)

Julia Bradbury moves her head sideways, all the better to see her very strong, ‘very Greek’ nose in profile. 

Beside her, her mum Chrissi, who is 83, is doing the same. It’s like a Greek nose appreciation society meeting, except with a member missing. 

‘My sister Gina has one to match,’ explains Julia. ‘Mum always taught us to be proud of our noses.’

She ponders the question of whether the whole family shares the Greek temperament, as well as the nasal attributes.

‘Gina more so than me, I think. She flares up quite easily. Mind you, I can as well. We had a huge row in the car recently – about something completely trivial. 

‘She was driving. I opened the door and got out, swearing at her and stomping up the road. 

‘She came back, but it is a little like that, although I think my temperament is also half my dad’s. He’s English. Much more reserved.’

If you didn’t already know she’s half-Greek, then you will by the time you’ve seen Julia Bradbury’s latest TV series. 

It’s a very personal project – she calls it ‘my latest baby’ – and is part travel show, part personal journey. 

In it, she explores the Greek islands, including Chios, where her mother’s ancestors are from.

Her mum leans forward as Julia says the word ‘Chios’ and corrects her pronunciation. 

There is no ‘ch’ sound in Greek, so the word starts with more of a cough from the back of the throat. 

Or it should do. Julia looks suitably chastened.

‘I don’t speak Greek. That’s Mum’s fault by the way, but she never lets me forget it. 

‘She spent her whole time during filming correcting me.’

Yes, this was a take-your-mother-to-work type of project. When Julia jetted off to Greece with the camera crew, her mum came too. 

The six-part series sees Julia exploring the hidden side of the Greek islands, the parts not necessarily familiar to the three million Brits who head there every year on holiday. 

Yes, the big tourist destinations like Corfu, Crete and Santorini are on her itinerary, but she also explores lesser-known gems like Symi and Skopelos, the location for the film Mamma Mia!.

En route she meets fishermen, farmers and, in the first episode, even a goat shepherd called Giannis, who shows her how he makes cheese using age-old traditional methods. 

Come to think of it, there is a lot of food in this series. ‘How could you go and not focus on the food?’ asks Julia. 

In the town of Rethymno, on Crete, Julia tries the sweet delicacy baklava, meeting filo pastry expert Giorgos who has been producing it for 75 years.

There’s music in the mix too. She meets master artisan Nico, who expertly makes the Cretan lyra, a stringed instrument said to be the ‘soundtrack to Crete’

Nico sounds like quite a hunk. ‘He’s a Greek God, basically,’ she agrees. 

There’s a dollop of history on the itinerary as well. Her journey includes a visit to the stunning but poignant island of Spinalonga – once an exiled leper colony.

Of course, Julia’s Greek heritage comes into play, but her mother invited herself, it seems.

‘I was actually writing the pitch at the kitchen table and she decided she wanted to come, because we wanted to track down the house where her grandmother was born,’ says Julia. 

‘It was only fair really. Besides, it was her turn.’

Julia has form for getting the family involved. Her father, responsible for her love of walking and the outdoors, has popped up in a few of her projects, filming with her for Countryfile and Britain’s Best Walks. 

She says her mum has never been a part of her work before. Again, her mother has a slightly different take.

‘Well, I was there when you were filming with Dad. I was in the background, making sure you got fed. That was important.’

‘You were, Mum,’ says Julia, standing corrected.

Perhaps all celebrities should get their mothers to come along on interviews with them, because this really is a hoot.

Although Julia’s mother only appears in one episode it is quite endearing, and hilarious in parts. 

‘There was one day where we were visiting Homer’s Seat on Chios,’ Julia recalls. 

‘The plan was to go to the place where Homer is said to have sat and read and thought, and I’d read a little bit of Homer to Mum. 

‘She managed to sort of slip down the seat though, and couldn’t get up. Cue five minutes of hysteria where I was trying to help her.’

You only have to be in their company for a few minutes to realise that this is a most compelling mother/daughter relationship. 

Julia says her mother is her ultimate role model. 

Chrissi, a fashion designer who ran her own studio and shop, agrees that both her daughters – Gina, 49, co-founded and runs The Outdoor Guide, a walking and activities resource, with Julia – have inherited her work ethic.

‘They’re both workaholics, and they got that from me. I’m not necessarily proud of that, it’s just a fact. They’re not workshy.’

While they may have chosen very different careers, Julia says the way her mother worked – from home, with her job very much a part of the family life – was hugely influential. 

‘I don’t ever remember Mum not working, but we were very much part of it,’ she says. 

‘She had a studio and I remember I’d come home and do my homework and then mess things up in her studio. 

‘She was always sketching, designing. Later she had a shop so she’d be serving customers. But it was a lovely way to learn about work. 

‘It wasn’t so much a job as a way of life.’

Chrissi was actually born in the UK, as was her mother before her.

Her grandmother Harriet – Julia’s great-grandmother – came to the UK as a newlywed, settling in South Wales. 

Back in Chios, she left the house that had been part of her dowry. 

Julia and her mum’s mission in this series was to find it again. 

Did they? ‘We think we did,’ says Julia, producing a picture of a handsome, if rundown, property. 

‘She’d been given the house and some fields as her dowry but as soon as they married they came to the UK and left the place behind. 

‘We never knew what had happened to it and it was derelict.’

Chrissi takes over the story. ‘By virtue of my grandmother’s death, it passed to my mother, who is 102 now. 

‘She has all her marbles, which bodes well for me,’ she jokes. ‘She has now passed it on to me, but there are no papers at all.’

Julia was rather thrilled to stand on the ground her ancestors had come from, and although the much talked-about house in Chios wasn’t a mansion, it was still quite a find.

‘We didn’t discover we were related to shipping tycoons, sadly, but it was quite exciting.’

To her mother’s delight, Julia’s three children do sport very distinctively Greek names. Zephyrus is eight and twins Xante and Zena are four. 

Their surname is Cunningham though (their father is Julia’s partner Gerard Cunningham, a property developer). 

Not remotely Greek. 

‘The deal was that they got Greek Christian names,’ says Julia. ‘And we squeezed Bradbury in as the middle name too.’

There’s a dramatic story behind Julia’s route to motherhood, though.

She suffered from endometriosis, a problem with the lining of the womb, and for a long time the family thought she would not be able to have children. 

It took five IVF attempts for the twins to be conceived.

Upsettingly, Chrissi was diagnosed with bowel cancer when Julia was pregnant with her first child, and for a while no one knew if she would be alive to meet him. 

‘I don’t go there very often,’ says Chrissi of that difficult period.

‘I try to forget that time, but Zephyr was a special ray of sunshine at the end of the line. It kept me going.’

She reveals that she wasn’t going to have treatment for her cancer, but Julia – pregnant and emotional – convinced her to. 

‘It was a terrible time when I was diagnosed. I’d been a workaholic, working six days a week. I was still running a business when I got the news. 

‘I wasn’t going to do anything about it, I thought, “Well, if I last another ten years…” But Julia said, “If they offer a treatment you have got to take it.” She persuaded me, so I did it. I’m glad.’

Julia is getting emotional now. ‘It was an awful time. I was pregnant, emotional, hormonal. 

‘I remember saying to Mum, “But you’ve got to live. You have to. You have to see your grandchild.” And now she’s lived to see another two as well.’

Ideally, says Julia, her mum would like it if they all lived in the same house. 

Certainly one of the rockiest periods in their relationship was when Julia moved to LA early in her TV career.

‘Mum was devastated. It’s the most devastating thing for a Greek mother if your daughter moves to the other side of the world.’ So she would come to stay. 

‘Seemingly, lots of the family would come to stay too.

‘It was like a conveyor belt of visitors, as if they decided I couldn’t be on my own,’ says Julia. 

‘There was me trying to live off Sunset Boulevard on my own…’

We get on to the subject of whether her mother approves of everything Julia does. Motherhood, for example. 

Does she agree with the way Julia raises her children? ‘Oh no,’ she says, as Julia puts her head in her hands. 

‘I don’t approve of a lot of what Julia does. A lot of the time I find myself thinking, “I wouldn’t have done it like that.” But it’s a generational thing.

‘If there are 40 years between you there are always going to be differences, but you can’t say too much can you?’

Is she good at reining in her disapproval though? Julia awaits the answer. 

‘No,’ says Chrissi. ‘I’m itching to say something. I itch a lot.’

Julia laughs. ‘It’s a Greek thing. The curse of the Greek mother.’  

The Greek Islands With Julia Bradbury, Friday, 8pm, ITV.