The Documentary: DNA and Me
BBC World Service

No disrespect to the makers of this excellent documentary (14 July), but from the moment Sophia Smith Galer and her father set foot in the cemetery in Loughton where the latter’s parents were buried, you had a fair idea of what was going to happen. As Mr Smith Galer, prompted by his daughter, decided that he didn’t “feel any different”, and then went on to declare that “it is what it is”, the suspicion hardened into certainty.

Now in his late sixties, this self-styled council estate boy from the East London/Essex borders had purchased an at-home DNA testing kit. The stimulus was an article in The Times, and the object was to acquire information that might be useful for his health. The results proved to be uncannily precise. As well as defining him as 66.8 per cent British/Irish, they also noted that he had a slight predisposition towards late-onset Alzheimer’s and a wake-up time of 6.37 a.m.