British television newscaster, Trevor McDonald takes in the ‘faded romance’ of Cuba, the Caribbean’s biggest island, a country where almost everything is half a century old. He visits the oldest cigar making factory on the island, and learns about living under a communist regime where food is rationed and a television can cost more than a home.

Trevor travels to his birthplace, Trinidad, for one of the highlights of the country’s calendar, a two-day long carnival. Trevor models a hand-crafted costume and soaks up the noisy, bright atmosphere as bands of up to 1000 people dance through the streets.

In Cuba, Trevor discovers a country where time has stood still. When Fidel Castro overthrew the government 50 years ago America responded by imposing a trade embargo on the island – as a result many things there are more than 50 years old, including many of the cars. With a local journalist as his guide, Juan, Trevor travels around the capital city, Havana, in a bright red classic Chevrolet.

Trevor says: “The entire city is enveloped by a sense of faded elegance. Buildings once grand and magnificent show signs of weary neglect.” Juan explains to Trevor what life is like under a communist regime where everyone is paid equally, from doctors to taxi drivers, unemployment is less than two per cent and there are reminders everywhere that the state is in control – especially in the media.

The news presenter meets his Cuban counterpart, newsreader Mariuska Diaz to see how her daily life compares. They discuss News at Ten’s lighthearted ‘And finally…’ tales which take a different twist in Cuba – the story at the end of the bulletin that day is about a school being named after communist icon, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
Trevor tours the news studio and chats to Mariuska about her fame but soon discovers that celebrity status is discouraged in the country and the newsreaders are jacks of all trades – even applying their own make-up before a bulletin. Trevor is also surprised to learn that the newsreader has a second job to supplement her wage – as an MC in a club. Juan shows Trevor his two-bedroom apartment bought for the equivalent of $200 from the government – then he takes him to an electrical shop, with nearly bare shelves. As consumerism is discouraged in Cuba, the government taxes goods, resulting in a television costing more than Juan’s apartment and some things taken for granted in Britain, like toasters, being almost impossible to obtain. Trevor’s shopping trip with Juan, as he picks up his monthly food rations, is a world apart from a supermarket run in the UK. Trevor watches in amazement as the Cuban reporter gets rice and grains and even cigarettes and matches at a subsidised rate – his whole monthly shop costs the equivalent of just $2.

At the cigar factory, Trevor follows workers as they collect the tobacco and roll the leaves, producing three million cigars a year by hand that sell for up to £30 each in the west – more than the workers earn in a single month. The atmosphere in the factory is buzzing as the workers chat and smoke but Trevor is astonished to see them all stop and stand in silence as the national anthem is played before the daily newspaper is read out to them.