Ross Kemp

Actor Ross Kemp came to fame in the 1990s in EastEnders. More recently, he’s travelled to some of the most dangerous places in the world as an award-winning documentary presenter. Now, he is bringing his investigative skills to his own family history.

Ross starts his journey by visiting his parents. Ross’s dad was a detective, and his mum was a hairdresser. Dad always sought out the truth, and Mum loved a story. Ross believes sifting fact from fiction will be the biggest challenge when it comes to his family history, and he’s starting with his maternal great-grandad, Arthur Chalmers, known to the family as Pop. Ross learns from his mum that Pop grew up in a pub in Portsmouth and was one of 11 children in the Chalmers family. She thinks Ross’s great-great-grandfather was from Ireland. The family story is that Pop spent most of his life at sea and was shipwrecked at least two times. During the Second World War, Ross’s mum remembers that Pop went missing but then turned up wearing a US army uniform.

Ross travels to the family’s pub in Portsmouth. Genealogist Maggie Lewis debunks the story that Ross’s great-great-grandfather was from Ireland. In fact, there were at least four generations of the family who came from Portsmouth. Ross learns about one of Pop’s brothers, Ross’s great-great-uncle, Albert Chalmers. Ross is given a stack of newspaper articles from the time and discovers Albert was constantly in trouble for drunk and disorderly behaviour. He also reads that he was on a blacklist. At another pub in Portsmouth, Ross meets historian David Beckingham, who tells Ross that blacklists were lists of men and women who were banned from all the pubs in an area. Ross discovers that his great-great-uncle was sent to an ‘inebriate reformatory' in Warwick for three years. This was the only one for men in the country and was essentially a prison for alcoholics. Albert would have spent his strictly regimented days attending morning prayers and sewing mailbags and ends his days at a psychiatric hospital in Portsmouth. Ross sees a haunting photograph of him in records and reflects on how little has changed over generations in the understanding and treatment of alcoholism. Having found out about his great-grandfather Pop’s early life, Ross wants to investigate whether the story of shipwrecks are true. Historian Harry Bennett confirms that Pop joined the merchant navy and served during the First World War, shipping troops and provisions to frontlines. Harry hasn’t been able to find any evidence of Pop being shipwrecked during World War I, but there are gaps in the records.

After the war, Pop continued in the merchant navy but found himself in a very different world, working on luxury liners – the 1920s and 30s were the heyday of ocean cruises. Pop travelled the world visiting 56 different countries between the wars. Despite uncovering fascinating history in Pop’s career, Ross has still not discovered any evidence of a shipwreck. He’s hoping that records from the Second World War might, perhaps, confirm the stories. While Ross waits for records to come through, he turns his attention to his dad’s side of the family. As far as Ross knows, his paternal family came from Norfolk for generations. Through a search of birth, marriage and death records, Ross comes across his four-time great-grandfather, Jeremiah Whall and spots an intriguing detail – he’s listed as being buried at Greenwich Hospital. Ross knows that Greenwich was the home of the Royal Navy and heads there to see if his dad’s side of the family also had links to the sea.

At Greenwich, Ross learns that Jeremiah joined up as a drummer boy when he was only 13 and served in the Napoleonic Wars, including in the West Indies. Ross has now discovered travel and adventure on both sides of his family, but still wants to find proof of Pop being shipwrecked. A passenger list from 1943 indicates Pop was in Casablanca and intriguingly lists him as ‘a survivor ex the Duchess of York’. Ross travels to Casablanca to see if he can find out more. He meets historian Sarah-Louise Miller who tells Ross that the Duchess of York, the ship Pop was serving on, ran into trouble 300 miles off the coast of Portugal on 11 July 1943. It was part of a convoy that was torpedoed by the Germans. The ship went down with the loss of 89 lives. Pop and the others who survived then underwent a hazardous 700-mile journey to the nearest large port under Allied control – Casablanca. Pop was taken to a US military base there and given a uniform to wear and travel home in. Ross is delighted to have discovered that at last he can confirm the shipwreck story and that he has also solved the mystery of his mum remembering Pop turning up in a US uniform. For Ross, it’s been an emotional journey, learning about his great-grandfather and his life spent travelling around the world seeking adventures. Ross also reflects on his own life and his need to never sit still and always look for his next adventure.