Strictly’s Hamza Yassin on struggle to find love in remote village of just 150 people | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV
Strictly fave Hamza Yassin’s glitzy onstage life, which now sees him performing to several million avid viewers per week, couldn’t be more different from the tranquil isolation of his home in the miniscule Scottish village of Kilchoan. The wildlife presenter and photographer is all for rugged nature, but admits that the lifestyle and surroundings he chose have never made it easy to fall in love.
After taking a holiday to the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula as a college student, he was so struck by the beautiful location that he resolved to do whatever it took to be able to call it home.
In fact, he was so desperate to relocate that by the age of 21, he’d voluntarily made himself homeless, sleeping in his car and washing his clothes at a local community centre.
He was even forced to use public toilets at a jetty as he didn’t have one of his own – but the Zoology student was determined to make his new life work.
The TV star made himself indispensable amongst the locals by mowing their lawns and chopping wood for their fireplaces – and in return they gave him the money he needed to top up his petrol tank and buy food.
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Hamza finally succeeded in snaring his dream job as a wildlife presenter, but there were costs involved in moving 500 miles away from his Northamptonshire home and avidly travelling for work.
“My job doesn’t really allow for a relationship,” the hard-working TV presenter and camera-man, who often travels the world to film footage, admitted.
“How can you sustain a relationship, like: ‘I’m sending you a text message from a satellite phone, because I’m in the Arctic for two months?!'”
Meanwhile, back home in his village, he believes he is “the only black person” in a 150-mile radius.
He has to take a five-hour round trip when he wants to buy groceries, due to the distance of his nearest “local shop”.
When he first moved to the isolated location, he even had to tell his concerned mother not to call him as there was no phone signal in the village.
He announced: “Don’t call me – I will call you!” but now believes he has found his own “family” amid the rural landscapes of westerly Scotland to curb any loneliness.
Yet, despite those challenges, he insists he is currently too busy for romance and wouldn’t change his lifestyle for the world.
In fact, he made readers chuckle when he admitted to the Guardian: “I’d rather face a polar bear than step on the dance floor!”
A polar bear is likely to be exactly what Hamza will encounter when he takes his trips to the Arctic.
Although the cold weather can be gruelling, it’s just what the doctor ordered for Hamza, who has confessed that, by contrast, the blistering heat of Khartoum, where he was born, used to give him nose bleeds.
Hamza and his family stayed in Sudan until he was eight years old, before leaving for the UK to escape war.
Despite how different his Strictly lifestyle is from anything he’ll encounter in his adopted village, Hamza is now warming to dance – and audiences are warming to him.
It was a slow start, after Hamza confessed wryly: “I really liked the rumba, but I’m not sure the rumba liked me!”
After making the self-deprecating comment to presenter Rylan Clarke on Strictly: It Takes Two, and fearing that he was too large to accomplish the moves, he slowly found his feet.
Now the star seems to have taken over from Will Mellor as a firm favourite to win the Glitterball trophy, with bookies announcing that he is now expected to win.
