finding

Joe Swash says discovering family history has made him complete after taking part in Who Do You think You Are? for the BBC

Joe Swash says he feels “galvanised” after learning about the Italian roots of his family. The actor and husband of Stacey Solomon appears on Who Do You Think You Are? hoping to learn more about his family tree.

Former EastEnders star Joe, 44, tells the programme he lost his own dad Ricky when he was aged 39 and Joe was just 12 which had a big impact on his upbringing.

He explained: “My house was full of life and life. And then, when my dad died, for a long time, it was a house full of sadness and grief. So, you know, a lot of the time it was just trying to get through that period. Growing up in London, I was quite vulnerable, not having a father figure, and I had dyslexia and ADHD that wasn’t diagnosed, so I do struggle when I read something, and a lot of the time I was misunderstood as being quite naughty and mischievous.”

Joe says thanks to some “strong women” in his life he stayed on track, and that he feels like he has got some “Italian traits” including wearing his heart on his sleeve. His mum Kiffy tells him that on his father’s side his great grandmother’s part of the family tree were Italian.

At this stage Joe doesn’t know anything beyond his grandad Charlie but his parents were Joe’s great grandad also called Charlie Swash and Maria Raimo. A 1921 marriage certificate shows Maria living at home in Lox Gardens in London with her parents, Giuseppe, Italian for Joseph, and Rosa, Joe’s great great grandparents.

Joe’s great great grandfather Guiseppe Raimo moved from Italy to London and worked his way up from a street performer in poor living conditions to a job crafting Street pianos. He also spoke alongside Sylvia Pankhurst in 1923 at a Communist Workers’ Movement meeting in London. A letter in his name was published in weekly newspaper The Worker’s Dreadnought, condemning the brutality of the fascist regime.

Historian Alfio Bernabei said: “Giuseppe wasn’t simply attending the meeting, he was actually speaking alongside Sylvia Pankhurst. He could see what was going on, he was following events in Italy, and everything was leading towards a catastrophe. Giuseppe would have run terrible risks had he been in Italy, and he was running terrible risks in London.”

Hearing this detail, Joe said: “It really does fill me with a great, great deal of pride to think that he was struggling through life anyway, being Italian, living where they were living, but he still was concerned about what was happening in the world and fascism, so he must have been a man with great moral compass, someone that really stood by what he thought.

“I had so much pride when I found out about him. The journey he went on, the morals and the things he stood up for, the people he rubbed shoulders with, and the way he got out and worked through poverty to make himself and make his family’s life better, just shows real tenacity. Learning about his speech was emotional, it was a total surprise. I think in that moment I felt really close to my relatives, to Giuseppe. It was such a lovely thing to find out.”

Joe also goes to Naples and traces his ancestors back to his five times great grandfather Donato who was born in 1762 and was living in the now largely abandoned but picturesque mountainous town of Senerchia. The family were peasant farmers but did have a brush with crime after being wrongly linked to the Italian brigands in 1867 during the Italian rebellion.

Back in the present day Joe also finds a ‘Raimo bar’ nearby to Senerchia, and is delighted the family name lives on in Italy. Reflecting on everything, Joe said: “For a lot of my life, I’ve never really known who I am, what I am, where my roots are. I don’t know if that’s due to losing my dad at a young age, but being on his journey, it really has sort of like galvanised who I am, where I’m from, the people that made me, how strong they are, they never give up. Hopefully a bit of that tenacity has come down the line to me.”

He added: “I think what I’ll carry with me from this experience is just the importance of where you come from and knowing who you are. As well as the things that I found out about my relatives, especially about Giuseppe. Traits and things from them that I hope I have as well, or that I’d like to introduce into my life, you know. It just made me feel a lot more attached to my heritage, which I’ve never really felt attached to. I very much knew nothing about it before, but after this journey, I feel like I’m part of something.”

* Who Do You Think You Are? With Joe Swash airs on BBC1 at 9pm on Tuesday June 9. The series is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway lost her husband Derek Draper in 2024

Kate Garraway had been married to late husband Derek Draper for 18 years when he died in 2024.

The Good Morning Britain presenter was left heartbroken when the former political advisor died at the age of 56, weeks after suffering a cardiac arrest. Derek had spent more than a year in hospital after falling ill with the coronavirus in 2020. He suffered several health setbacks and had needed round the clock care after he returned home to Kate and their two children Darcey and Billy.

“Rest gently and peacefully now Derek, my love, I was so lucky to have you in my life,” Kate said in a moving tribute after announcing that he had died.

The star has since been open about what life is like for the family as they try and deal with their loss, sharing touching milestones and opening up about their grief journey.

Kate has occasionally addressed whether she might dip her toe in the dating pool again. However, two years on, she is still thought to be single, although there have been persistent rumours about her meeting someone.

What has Kate Garraway said about finding love again?

In February 2025, Kate opened up about life after Derek in a chat with Hello! magazine.

While she didn’t specifically talk about relationships, the TV presenter did say that she knew her late husband would want her to live her life.

“Derek would want me to be grabbing life, because you learn how fast, and how easily, it can be snatched away,” she said. “I know he’d be saying, ‘You’ve got to get out and live, because I can’t’.”

A few months later, the star told The Sun that all the speculation about her love life had “made me think about it”.

“And honestly, I don’t feel as if I can,” she said. “It’s a weird one, because I wouldn’t like to think I’d spend the rest of my life without love, but also it feels preposterous at the moment to think of being with anyone else.”

However, Kate said she knew she was “going to have to think about the future at some point”.

The Celebrity Traitors star said expanding her social circle was on the agenda, so that she could try to have a social life that “isn’t based on being a mummy”. “There’s no point in worrying about it – it will happen organically when I am ready,” she said.

Kate, who took part in the first celebrity series of The Traitors, has also admitted that living the rest of her life without finding love again would be “sad”.

Opening up to Jamie Laing on his Great Company podcast, she said: “Well I wouldn’t like to think that I’d never had romantic love in my life again. I think that would be rather a sad way to go through life wouldn’t it?

“But, no, I’m not there yet. I don’t know if anybody would want me.”

She quipped: “Talk to your mates, find out if any of their dads are single.”

Kate Garraway is on the Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer, which airs at 7pm on Channel 4 on Sunday May 3.

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1 and ITVX.

A 10-year-old girl who found an endangered Mexican axolotl while on holiday in Wales has told the BBC about the moment she found and caught the amphibian.

It is the first documented discovery of an axolotl in the wild in the UK, with only 50 to 1,000 left globally, according to experts.

Evie was playing in the shallows of the River Ogmore in Bridgend when she spotted the axolotl nestled in the rocks.

The family decided to cut their trip short to take the animal back to their home in Leicester, naming it Dippy as a tribute to where Evie found it.

“I think it’s a really nice change to the family,” Evie said about having Dippy.

Chris Newman, the National Centre for Reptile Welfare (NCRW) director, said the manner in which Dippy was found suggested its previous owner had released it due to a “change in circumstances”.