was the most junior reporter<\/a> on the Today programme. I was sitting next to Jonathan Maitland, who has since made his name writing brilliant plays. The drawer in which I kept my tape machine was jammed shut. I asked Jonathan what to do, and he found the number for BBC maintenance. This was during the Thatcher years, so they had possibly been privatised. Two men arrived in overalls with a bag of tools.<\/p>\n\u201cThe drawer is stuck and I wondered if you could get it open,\u201d I said cheerily.<\/p>\n
They brought out a long metal rod with a forked end as if this was the approved drawer tool they had spent all day using. With skill and focus, they prised the drawer open without breaking it. Now I was able to extract my tape machine.<\/p>\n
However, just as the workmen were leaving, I tried to shut the drawer and discovered it was now jammed open. \u201cExcuse me,\u201d I said. \u201cIt won\u2019t close now.\u201d<\/p>\n
They took a brief look and shook their heads. The tallest of the pair declared: \u201cYou\u2019ll need someone else for that.\u201d And they left.<\/p>\n
That phrase \u2014 You\u2019ll need someone else for that \u2014 has rung in my ears in all the decades since. It is the answer given by politicians and police, by priests and physicians: \u201cI want to be able to help you, but I can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you ask the audience a question on the radio, you literally never get that answer. Not once. They step up to the plate \u2014 the phone, really \u2014 and tell you what you need to know. Every single day, every single item for 23 years. So when someone says: \u201cWhat did you learn from your listeners?\u201d, it is that they are always there for you. Day in, day out. Rain or shine.<\/p>\n
For years, TV and radio programmes have booked experts. The professor of parenting who has no children herself. We\u2019ve enjoyed hearing from qualified people since the invention of the microphone, but we have finally worked out that to get to the heart of a story \u2013 well, you need someone else for that.<\/p>\n
Some of my callers really set us thinking. Last week, a man called Derek texted to say: \u201cI am not affected by any rise in petrol prices because I only ever spend twenty pounds when I buy fuel.\u201d I still can\u2019t fault that logic.<\/p>\n
If you want one lesson, it is this. Never underestimate the power of people\u2019s private feelings, and the sheer voltage of a sudden connection made with a stranger. Last year, I interviewed a woman who had two new hands, transplanted from a dead person. The lady, whom I\u2019ll call Claudia, had had sepsis and lost her feet and hands; the donor was a nurse in her fifties who had died suddenly after suffering a massive bleed on the brain.<\/p>\n
Claudia told me how she had longed to show gratitude to the donor, but of course, the donor was gone. So she met the late nurse\u2019s sister and asked her what she could do to honour the new hands. The sister told Claudia: \u201cShe [the nurse] loved a glass of white wine and doing the crossword.\u201d That, said Claudia, would not be a problem. Then the sister explained how they had been very close as children, and it meant a lot to her that the two of them had sometimes walked hand in hand and would it be possible still to do that?<\/p>\n
Imagine the power \u2014 me hearing that, sitting in my studio chair. Suddenly, the lack of a window view doesn\u2019t matter at all.<\/p>\n
\nThis week I have been\u2026<\/p>\n
Interviewing\u2026<\/strong> Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, about his new book\u00a0Solidarity. I have never met a person blessed with a bigger brain. He sees all angles; journalists do black and white. Sometimes you feel Rowan\u2019s brain is so big he is lost in it \u2013 he understands eleven languages and is a published poet \u2013 but other times he brings you to a point of clarity that makes you see the world differently.\u00a0<\/p>\nHis book is about how we owe it to each other to try to empathise, especially with those we think we don\u2019t understand. The event was for the \u201cHow To Academy\u201d at the Royal Geographical Society. Of course, I disgraced myself by asking Rowan if we should all cry at the John Lewis adverts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cheering\u2026<\/strong> For my team, Chelsea, as they lost 3-0 to Everton. But it was a strangely enjoyable day. I always promise my eldest daughter, Martha, 22, that we will try to watch at least one away game per season.\u00a0<\/p>\nOur Everton tickets came via my friend Mike Parry (sports journalist and broadcaster). He was so welcome at the club that David Moyes came out to greet him! Mike brought Gill, his sister. Along with Martha, we were a very happy four.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Everton press team showed us the new Hill Dickinson stadium before the game. It is steep-sided and compact, and once full, the atmosphere was incredible. I felt happy\/sad that my team had given theirs the best game since it moved from Goodison in December. At least the Blues won!<\/p>\n
Discussing\u2026<\/strong> Parkinson\u2019s Disease with a lovely woman called Vicky Rees-Davies. I met her at the offices of Parkinson\u2019s UK. My father died with Parkinson\u2019s \u2013 died from it, I should say \u2013 but other patients live much longer. Vicky, diagnosed at 46, is an absolute fount of positivity.\u00a0<\/p>\nAs they say: \u201cIf you\u2019ve met one patient with Parkinson\u2019s, you\u2019ve met one patient with Parkinson\u2019s.\u201d My brother-in-law has lived with it for twenty years. If a genie gave me a magic lamp, I would use my three wishes on Parkinson\u2019s, MS and motor neurone disease.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Jeremy Vine presents his shows on Radio 2 and Channel 5. His second whodunit, Turn the Dial for Death, is published in April.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the strange way the BBC operates, my studio was rebuilt a while back and placed in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[79674,802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,1754,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-884579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-bbc-radio-2","9":"tag-brexit","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-jeremy-vine","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116380320899993557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}