EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Moral maze for the BBC’s Michael Buerk over new passport

During a long and distinguished career, he regularly reported moving stories, many from South Africa during apartheid and, most famously, from Ethiopia when the country was devastated by famine in 1984.

But it was not until twenty years later, in a beautifully written memoir, The Road Taken, that presenter Michael Buerk, host of The Moral Maze on Radio 4, exposed the truth about his own father, a Canadian bigamist whose ‘war wound’ was: in fact a scar from a hernia operation.

His father was not, as he claimed, born in 1920 but in 1914, and his whole life was layered in deception.

Now, at age 78, Buerk has discovered that those layers even helped obscure the truth about his own life—particularly his birthplace.

Far from being born in Birmingham, as Buerk always believed – and as he faithfully recorded in successive passports – he was not even born in Britain.

“Michael thought he was born in Britain, but he was actually born in Canada,” a friend tells me. “He just got his first Canadian passport.”

Buerk does not want to say how he made this surprising discovery, but has never made a secret of the persistent pain his father caused.

In The Road Taken, published in the Ny Breaking twenty years ago, he told how his mother, Betty, met his father at a Christmas dance in 1944.

Blinded by the Canadian – who called himself “Captain Gordon Charles Buerk” and said he was a widower who had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean and survived “hand-to-hand combat in Italy” – she married him in April 1945 . born the following February.

Shortly afterwards, Helen, his father’s first wife, who was still living in Canada, heard of his marriage to Betty.

She magnanimously agreed to a speedy divorce – after which, astonishingly, Betty and Gordon were married a second time in Birmingham. But the union quickly collapsed. Betty died the summer her son completed his O-Levels.

Buerk met his father only once, tracing him to Vancouver in 1972. By then Gordon was dying: ‘a portly little old man, with an idiot’s mustache nailed to a fading face’.

But I’m told Michael is now ready for a return trip. “He plans to return soon,” says a friend, “with his Canadian passport.”

Jessica Gunning has become an overnight sensation thanks to her role as a stalker in the Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, but the actress is already tired of the same jokes fans make over and over again when they greet her on the street.

“Every other person came up and said how much they love the show. It’s amazing,” she says.

“I don’t think any of us expected it to have such an impact. A few people have asked for selfies and then ‘joked’ that they’re not going to give me their number.”

As the author of House Of Cards, the thriller with an amoral schemer played by Kevin Spacey in the successful Netflix adaptation, Michael Dobbs is not easily shocked.

But he appears to be concerned about a new political stage comedy, Party Games!, written by Michael McManus, with whom he worked at Conservative Central Office.

The play, said to be inspired by real events, opens tonight at the Yvonne Arnaud Theater in Guildford, Surrey.

“McManus is writing again,” Lord Dobbs tells me. ‘He’s seen it all. He will leave no stone unturned, leave no reputation intact. I’m afraid.’

King Charles sent his Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, Sir Kenneth Olisa, to present Shirley Conran with the badge of her ladyship in an investiture ceremony at the author’s hospital bedside.

“She made it,” says designer Jasper Conran of his 91-year-old mother, who, as I reported yesterday, was too ill to travel to Buckingham Palace to collect her honor.

Jasper adds: ‘It was an incredibly moving ceremony. She is now beaming with her tribute.”

Nell wears her heart on her sleeve – unlike big brother Paul

Paul Mescal shot to fame opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones as Connell in the BBC’s coming-of-age drama Normal People.

His sister, singer Nell Mescal, hopes to make a name for herself with songs about “growing up, moving and breaking friendships.”

And she was joined by her brother at the launch party of her debut EP Can I Miss It For A Minute? at the private members club The House of Koko in Camden, North London.

Nell, who turned 21 days early, has said her music is about “trying to navigate between current emotions and negative memories.”

Paul, 28, is less keen to speak out about such matters. Last year he called on those speculating about his split from American singer Phoebe Bridgers to ‘shut their mouths’.