Bharat Patel – Hope Cancer Charity

Bharat has worked for BBC Radio Leicester, Radio 4, ITV and BBC TV. He has covered major events which have made headlines around the world, including the Kegworth air crash, the death of Princess Diana, the Gujarat earthquake, the capture of the first serial killer through DNA fingerprinting and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. But it’s not all been about tragedy. He’s also interviewed a parrot who allegely spoke five languages, the world’s oldest donkey and met Brian the Budgie, who escaped from Ilkeston to Corfu but was found by his astonished owners while they were eating a souvlaki under a tree on holiday in Corfu Town.
But there’s one story he has never covered and that is his own. His family left a comfortable lifestyle in both India and Zambia after a soothsayer told his parents his future lay in England. They exchanged a comfortable lifestyle in a warm climate for a tiny terraced house with an outside toilet and a leaking roof in Highfields in Leicester. Their arrival was followed by a series of bizarre and comic incidents, which were often odder than anything Bharat encountered as a reporter. These are the subject of a highly entertaining book, ‘Indian Takeaway,’ which has been turned into an audiobook on BBC Sounds. All proceeds from the book go to the Hope Against Cancer charity, which has already found several cures for cancers through the research it funds.