LONDON – British veteran journalist Jon Snow said his life was ‘complete’ when his son was born, becoming a dad again at the age of 74.
The former news presenter revealed he is “at complete ease” with being a father in his 70s. Snow, now 75, and his wife, Zimbabwean academic Precious Lunga, welcomed a baby boy via surrogate in March 2021 after struggling with “medical setbacks and miscarriages”.
He also has two daughters from his three-decade relationship with human rights lawyer Madeleine Colvin. The former Channel 4 News anchor told the Saga Exceptional publication: “There are three very small people in my life – two grandsons, aged one and three, and a son, Tafara, who is two going on five.
“Having him (Tafara) was not easy but we persisted because, at 48, my wife is a good deal younger than me, and she very much wanted and deserved a baby. When he was born, life felt complete. I’m at complete ease with late fatherhood. I don’t feel I’ll drop him, I don’t feel exhausted.
“I haven’t found age relevant to my relationship with my son or grandsons. Is being a grandad different to being a dad? Not really. In the end, it’s all love, isn’t it?”
Snow said he is “much more relaxed and present as a parent” compared with his own father George, who was an Anglican clergyman. “He was the Bishop of Whitby – 6ft 7in tall and even taller in full regalia,” he added. “I’m 6ft 4in now, but only 4ft 6in as an eight or nine-year-old child, when it really mattered.
“I found him pretty scary and remote at that time, and my being sent to public school didn’t bring us any closer. The idea of taking a child out of the family to educate them strikes me now as bonkers. How wonderful it might have been to sit down to do homework with my father. Never once was I able to say, ‘Dad, two and two are really four?’.
“His only involvement in my education was to loudly agree with the damning reports from my teachers because, unlike Precious, who is Cambridge-educated and the boffin in our relationship, I wasn’t bright at school.”
Snow said there are “many kinds of intelligence” and that his was the “raw, animal kind”. He added: “I was good at picking up signals and understanding people. I made a career from it. I’m certain my drive to succeed came from wanting to prove the naysayers – especially my parents – wrong. And wrong they certainly were.”
