FAMILY MATTERS

TV star Joe Swash opens up about celebrating his late father and discovering his Italian heritage

- JO BERRY

Actor and presenter Joe Swash is no stranger to letting cameras film his private moments, whether it’s in the jungle for I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! or at the Pickle Cottage home he shares with his other half Stacey Solomon for the reality series Stacey & Joe.

But his latest TV appearance, in an episode of the documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, is Joe’s most revealing yet, as he delves into his own history and discovers stories about his late father's side of the family that bring the former EastEnders star to tears.

At 44, Joe is already five years older than his dad Ricky was when he died at the age of 39. Joe was just 12 when he lost his father, and remembers what life was like in his family’s Islington home following his death. “For a long time it was a house full of sadness and grief — a lot of the time I was trying to get through that period,” he says.

Joe was already working as a child actor by that time, having made his first TV appearance in an Andrex commercial when he was seven years old, which he followed with roles in the sitcom You Rang, M'Lord? and dramas Casualty, The Bill and London's Burning.