Who on Earth would wear a jaunty, multicoloured necktie to the scene of a deadly mining disaster? Why, Jon Snow, of course. For over three decades, the Channel 4 News anchor was renowned not only for his colourful accessories, but also his ability to mix serious broadcasting with grace and humour. “Twinkly yet firm, tenacious yet human,” as one admiring fellow journo summarised. “[Snow] should be required viewing for those reporters who treat the medium as a gym for their egos.”
Snow left Channel 4 in 2021 and, last month, he revealed his Alzheimer’s diagnosis while promoting a new feature-length documentary, Jon Snow: A Last Big Story – and now the documentary is out. The film was originally intended as a dementia-awareness-raising travelogue following Snow and his wife, Precious Lunga, on safari near Victoria Falls.
While in Zambia, however, Snow was alerted to a huge ecological disaster at a Chinese-owned copper mine; a dam had burst, devastating local communities and poisoning rivers with a cocktail of lethal chemicals. The disaster hadn’t made the news, and Snow was determined to investigate. Not an easy job for a man we had just witnessed being unable to recall the three words that a neurosurgeon had asked him to recall a minute earlier.
