‘I’m in awe of her’

Baz Ashmawy opens up about his close relationship with his mum as her takes her to work… for nine months!

Bringing your mother to work for a day might test even the most patient person, but nine months? Forget about it! But that’s exactly what Baz Ashmawy did, and the results are just brilliant, entertaining, endearing and funny all at once.
The fun loving presenter and his mother, Nancy, set off across the world on a series of extraordinary adventures together with Baz testing his mother’s limits, from sky diving to alligator wrangling and chasing fugitives! Yes, really! Their trip was filmed and put together for Sky 1 HD’s 50 Ways To Kill Your Mammy.
Nancy told U mag: “It was a wonderful journey and experience, I can’t find words to know how I would explain it all. For me it was a window into another world, it was absolutely fantastic.”
The 71-year-old (yes, that’s right, she’s 71!) has spent 10 years watching Baz gallivanting around the world throwing himself into all manner of extreme situations – and this time she joined him. “We had our moments, don’t get me wrong!” Baz laughed. “It’s funny the effect mum had on the crew. Because I was presenting it and producing it I’d have to have chats with the crew at times and things might get heated and then my mum would come over and go, ‘would you not use bad language, it’s not nice to talk like that’ and I noticed all the crew watched their language around mum!
“It’s amazing to do these things and it’s even more amazing and incredible to do these things when you’re 71. A lot of these things is to do with fear, it’s not to do with your age. I’ve never seen my mum as a 70-year-old, she’s still my 40-year-old mum.
“There was those moments I had when I thought, ‘who’s nuts here, is it my ma for doing it or me for letting her do it?’”.
It’s evident the pair have a really close relationship but did it bring them any closer? Baz said: “It’s an amazing memory to have, it was an amazing trip. Me and mum are just close and that’s just the way we are, nothing is going to bring us closer. I did think at the beginning if it’d bring us tighter or change our relationship and the truth is it didn’t change our relationship but what it does is it gives me and mum this amazing memory. It’s something I’ll take to the grave with me.
“It’s funny to see mum going back to normal life sitting around with her mates playing bridge and bragging how she sat on an alligator, she probably annoys the whole bridge club now, do you ma?” and she butted in: “No, not quite! They wouldn’t be long telling me to be quiet!” she laughed.
Baz has previously spoken about his dad’s absence during his childhood and told U mag Nancy slotted into the dual role as mother and father. “She’s all singing, all dancing. People go, ‘aw god isn’t she amazing?’, she’s my mum and I’ve known her my whole life. I know my mum was amazing before she did this…” he added, before Nancy interruped: “well one time you told me you thought I was a pain in the you know where…”, and Baz replied: “Everyone has that with their parents… Mentally she’s the strongest person I know, the most optimistic person I know and when she puts her mind to do something I’m in awe of her… it was brilliant but take your mum to work for one day and see what it’s like, take your mum to work for nine months and at the end of it I thought, ‘she’ll kill me or I’ll kill her!’ but when we got home it was just brilliant. The good outweighed the bad,” he added.
* To see what else Baz and Nancy got up to, tune into 50 Ways To Kill Your Mammy on Mondays from on Sky 1 HD at 9pm. You’ll love it, trust us!