Anneka Rice has told how she is still helping people away from the cameras, including being a Samaritans volunteer, which helps her feel she “makes a mark on the world”.
The 68-year-old was a huge star in the Nineties, known for Challenge Anneka, where she helped people and communities with their problems on screen.
Dealing with anxiety through volunteering
Asked how she deals with everyday anxieties these days, she said: “I dedicate my book to Piglet in Winnie the Pooh. There is a lovely quote: ‘Piglet was so excited at the thought of being useful that he forgot about being frightened’.
“I find that so touching, it makes me jelly. It means so much to me. I identify with that, because even with all the adventures I describe it sounds like I am made of Teflon, I am so not underneath.
“You have to find devices to get you through things like anxiety. Everyone talks about getting out in the fresh air and that is lovely, but I would say for me it is being part of a team or a community.
“That comes down often to volunteering. If you are part of a gang you feel you are not on your own.
“It is lovely to feel like you are part of something bigger than yourself.
“I have lots of communities I volunteer with. I am a Samaritan, so I get up at 5 O’clock in the morning and go to a call centre. I love that, we have a cup of coffee and see how the calls have been. It is very special that. Even if I have woken up not feeling 100%, by the time I have finished that shift I feel like I have made a mark on the world.”
Reflecting on fame and the end of Challenge Anneka
Promoting her new book called Challenge!, Anneka also insisted that she was undaunted when her success waned and Challenge Anneka ended on the BBC in the mid-Nineties.
At the time some sections of the media painted her move to sign up for the Chelsea College of Art as a step back and a negative thing.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, she said: “Fame didn’t sit particularly easy with me. I am private, my friends laugh so much at the job I do they see me as someone who goes to bed at 8pm and really can’t bear to talk to anyone for days on end.
“Fame was intense but I could use it for something glorious.”
She added: “I always loved what I could get done being influential, I had power and I was using that power and it was very successful. We had these projects running all around the world, you may remember the Romanian orphanage, we had refugee camps in Malawi and dozens of projects.
“There just came a point when it was going to end. I was incredible sad as were the crew, but I really thought that is fine that is closed that chapter. And that is when I applied for Chelsea College of Art
“I knew, the businesswoman in me, knew it wouldn’t end. As the owner of the format the buck stops with me and the format round the world, so I did things during that time like going out to ABC in America…I was very involved I just wasn’t on location as much.”
Memories of the Romanian orphanage
Appearing on stage alongside Times Radio hosts Jane Garvey and Fi Glover, presenter Anneka went on to talk movingly about her time in a Romanian orphanage on Challenge Anneka.
In December 1990, the BBC show went to Siret in north-east Romania and witnessed horrific conditions for hundreds of children living around raw sewage and tethered to cots.
Anneka still visits the area now, with the young people she helped now grown up and living in sheltered housing.
She said: “The reaction from the UK was extraordinary and we filled warehouses and 16 trucks with cots and medical supplies that set off through the mountains. We got a plane we filled to the gunnels.
“We got out to the orphanage on the Wednesday and I saw it for the first time and I honestly thought I had arrived in hell.
“It was pitch black, there was no light because there was no electricity, and you could almost hear rats and smell sewage.
“There were desperate children everywhere. We walked down to the steps to the basement, and there we saw the rusty old cots with children lying in their own stench and rocking desperately. We were all weeping, I have never wept like that before.
“We realised this project was not something we could fix in 10 days but boy did we try. We put in some showers and we fixed some lighting.
“The team spearheaded by Monica[McDaid] this teacher, she gave up her entire life and moved there.
“And those workman funded themselves for 35 years because I am still seeing them out there to go and do running repairs and help the children. We went out many times. They have now built sheltered housing. It is such a story I can’t even begin to tell you.”
The original series of Challenge Anneka, where she helped a team to revamp or create facilities for those in need, was shown on BBC One from 1989 to 1995, before it returned to ITV for two Boxing Day specials in 2006 and 2007.
Her broadcaster kickstarted her glittering career with a training course at the BBC, moving onto The World Service and she now presents regularly on Radio 4. She also appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2019.
Challenge! By Anneka Rice is out now published by Biteback.
