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1:07

I'm Nat Chawley, and this is Politics

1:09

Without the Boring Bits. Coming up on

1:11

today's episode, we celebrate the local news

1:14

and the interesting stories that just walk

1:16

into reception. And I think for the

1:18

first time ever on the podcast, I

1:20

tell the story of how I ended

1:22

up a few feet away from Michael

1:25

Jackson. Before that, in the

1:27

week, the Grant Shapps warns that Labour

1:29

on course were a super majority. We

1:31

ask, did the Tories give up in

1:33

1997? And don't

1:35

forget, if you like what you hear on the podcast, you can

1:37

join me for Politics Without the Boring Bits

1:40

live on Times Radio, on your DAB radio,

1:42

on your smart speaker or download the Times

1:44

Radio app. That's Politics Without the Boring Bits

1:46

weekdays from 10. But

1:51

first, as we always do on the podcast on a Friday, let's

1:53

take a look at what we learned this week. We

1:58

learned again what... Keir Starmer's dad

2:00

did. My dad was a tool maker. He

2:02

worked in a factory. It's true.

2:04

To think people laughed. In fact, everyone's been laughing

2:07

this week. We learned that people will laugh at

2:09

Nigel Farage. I've actually always told

2:11

the truth. I've always

2:13

told the truth. We learned that people

2:15

will also laugh at Freddie Morten. Why

2:17

on earth should anybody believe the fifth

2:20

manifesto that promises cuts to

2:22

net migration? Because of the

2:24

record of this prime minister. So we've

2:26

had five. We've

2:28

had five. We have figures out today.

2:31

It's like a 70s sitcom. We learned that

2:33

Wes Drede, when we learned what Wes Drede

2:35

used to think of Keir Starmer. When he

2:37

became leader of the Labour Party, did I

2:39

think that Keir Starmer would put us in

2:42

a position to win the following general election?

2:44

No, I thought this would be a two-term

2:46

project. I underestimated Keir. We

2:48

learned what SMP voters were going to vote

2:50

Labour really think of Keir Starmer now. He's

2:52

just a guy in a suit. I was writing

2:55

down sleep at the airport. I don't know if you know

2:57

what that means, but... Translate for

2:59

me. Translate for me. It's a bit

3:01

sneaky, you know. Uninspired, I

3:03

just wrote weak tea. We

3:05

learned that Grant Shapps might have given up

3:08

on the Tories' narrow path to victory. You

3:10

don't want to have somebody receive a super

3:12

majority. We learned what Rishi Sunat went without

3:14

while he was at Winchester School. But there'll

3:16

be all sorts of things that I would

3:18

have wanted as a kid that I couldn't

3:20

have, right? Famously Sky TV?

3:24

Famously. And we learned that Keir Starmer's

3:26

got a message for anyone who was

3:28

hoping for even a bit of excitement.

3:30

Where's the surprise? Where's the rabbit out

3:32

of the hat? To which I say,

3:34

if you want politics as a pantomime,

3:36

I hear Clapton is nice. It's

3:38

time of the year. To which I

3:40

say, you don't pull a rabbit out of

3:43

a hat and a pantomime, that's a magic

3:45

show. And that is what we learned this

3:47

week. And as you heard in that, Grant

3:49

Shapps, this week, the Defence Secretary, went on

3:51

Times Radio and started warning against giving Labour

3:53

a super majority. It caused a bit of

3:55

upset, because that's always Austin at least, pretending

3:57

that they are carrying on. trying

4:00

to win this thing. Well, early this

4:02

week, I spoke to Philip Webster, former

4:04

political editor of the Times and asked

4:06

him if he'd ever seen the like

4:08

of it in an election campaign. I've

4:10

never known anything quite like this. I've

4:12

just counting, I think I've done 16

4:14

general elections and I've

4:16

never known a campaign where

4:18

three weeks out, the governing

4:20

party virtually admits it's

4:22

lost and asked

4:25

people not to give Labour too big

4:27

a majority. It is quite incredible that

4:29

we've reached this sort of stage

4:32

in the campaigning so far

4:34

out. And so when

4:36

you were covering particularly like the

4:38

97 election, John Major and the

4:40

people around you at least kept up the pretense they

4:42

were going to win until the last days? Absolutely,

4:45

they had to pretend they were

4:47

going to win because they were

4:49

fighting for every seat at the time. So

4:52

that was Phil Webster. Yes, they obviously after Grant Shapps went

4:54

on Times Lady Breakfast and told us that they were now

4:57

concentrating on stopping Labour getting a super majority. Well,

4:59

is he right that John Major in the tour

5:01

is stuck to the line right the way down

5:04

to polling day where we can speak to Hal

5:06

James, who's political secretary to John

5:08

Major. Welcome back, Hal. Hello,

5:10

Matt. Good morning. Now, I, because this is obviously

5:12

how I like to spend my afternoons, I spent

5:15

some time rattling around in the corners of the

5:17

internet yesterday to try and find examples of John

5:19

Major from 1997. So let me

5:22

just take you on a trip down memory lane. This was

5:24

John Major at a big campaign rally at the Royal Albert

5:26

Hall on April the 4th, 1997. That's

5:29

four weeks before polling day. So go

5:32

out from this special British

5:34

place this evening. Go

5:36

out with conviction. Go

5:39

out with determination. Go

5:41

out with courage. And

5:44

on May the 1st, we shall

5:46

win that election and carry on

5:48

with our work. It

5:50

was four weeks before polling day he was

5:52

saying was going to win and here he

5:54

is on the day before polling day at

5:56

a Tory event on April the 30th. Tomorrow

5:58

will be Britain's day. of destiny, low

6:01

inflation, too good to give up. Low

6:04

mortgages, too good to give up.

6:06

Falling unemployment, too good to give

6:08

up. Our economic success, too

6:10

good to give up. Our

6:12

United Kingdom, too good to give

6:14

up. Don't take the risk. In

6:17

one careless moment, don't throw our

6:19

success away. So

6:22

how, there he was, clearly still sticking

6:24

to the line that he was going to win.

6:27

How important was that? How hard was that in

6:29

those last days of the campaign in 97? It's

6:33

hard, it's tough. And I

6:35

remember actually the Tuesday night immediately

6:37

before the Thursday

6:40

election day, we were at a

6:42

rather gloomy venue, the Excel Center

6:44

over in the East End of

6:47

London. And I was leaning

6:49

up against the back wall with a colleague.

6:52

And, you

6:54

know, we, you live in a bubble. When

6:59

you're traveling with a prime minister or

7:02

a party leader, particularly with the prime minister

7:04

because of the whole security of Fandango. When

7:06

you're also having to keep in touch with

7:08

number 10 and you're having to keep

7:10

in touch with so much stuff. You're

7:13

insulated and we

7:16

were standing there and there was surrounded by all

7:18

these people. And I think it was only that

7:20

night really that it came home to me that

7:23

this was the sort of, tomorrow was the last

7:25

day and then the whole world changed because we

7:27

knew. And all

7:29

that was down to John Major actually, give him

7:32

credit. He went into the campaign with a never

7:34

say die attitude. And I

7:36

mean, he rationalized, you know, to those

7:39

around him, why he felt that and why

7:41

he would say, we will win, we can

7:43

win. I think we evolved from we will

7:45

win to we can win through the campaign,

7:48

but that was his only concession. And,

7:50

you know, everyone knows John

7:52

Major. He's a very good, humid, decent

7:54

man. And he went into the campaign, I

7:57

think with, you know, with some very. clear

8:00

objectives. He knew exactly post

8:04

the problems of the ERM, post

8:06

all the sleaze coverage, after

8:09

all the rouse inside the party

8:11

about the euro, that he had

8:14

to run a decent

8:16

campaign and he wanted to run a

8:18

decent campaign. And that's what

8:20

fuels you at the end of the campaign.

8:24

It's what got him into the campaign,

8:26

his mindset going into the campaign, and he sustained

8:28

it all the way through to

8:31

the end. One,

8:33

his firm view was that Labour Party was

8:35

very inexperienced, and of course they were, Tony

8:38

Blair had never been a minister before, and

8:40

they might muck up. Things

8:42

go wrong in the campaigns, in the

8:44

heat of the moment they may well

8:46

drop the ball or the famous crystal

8:49

bloody bars. And you

8:51

can't account for that, and

8:53

so you must run a decent campaign

8:55

so that you can take advantage of

8:57

that happens. Secondly, I think scale of

8:59

defeat, being in a position, if you

9:01

know you're not, you're behind, getting, fighting, as

9:06

Phil Webster said there, fighting for every seat,

9:08

because you want to have a decent sized

9:11

party in parliament to be able to

9:13

oppose effectively when the

9:16

other side win. And

9:19

John Major really wanted

9:21

a proper democratic process.

9:23

He wanted the public

9:25

to put in front of them a proper choice.

9:29

And he was driven by that,

9:31

and I think that's what buoyed him up through to

9:33

the end. And it

9:36

is surprising to hear senior

9:38

politicians on the government side, on

9:40

the conservative side, appearing

9:43

to be so resigned to the

9:45

result at this

9:47

stage. Because, you know, the Prime Minister only

9:49

has one job. He's the leader, he's got

9:51

to buoy up the team that he's travelling

9:54

with, and he's got to buoy on the

9:56

whole party, and he does not have an

9:58

option to do anything. I

10:01

suppose I can see why just for

10:03

your own sanity you have to get up every morning and

10:05

think everything's gonna be alright. Do you think there

10:08

is a parallel universe

10:10

where John Major in 97, Rishi

10:13

Sunak now, recognizes

10:16

the reality we're in. When

10:18

you go around saying we're gonna win and

10:20

the poll, you know, everyone can, every normal

10:22

person can read the poll, would you get

10:24

any credit? Do you think it might have

10:26

more impact if you did say look I

10:29

accept we're not gonna win this but we

10:31

don't want, it's not good for democracy, do

10:33

not give Labour a landslide majority. If you've

10:35

got a good hard-working local Conservative MP then

10:37

you can vote for them because we would

10:39

need a proper opposition. Do you think the

10:41

public might respond to that better than looking

10:43

like you're a bit crackers saying

10:45

that we're gonna win this thing? Yeah,

10:48

look, I don't know what the right answer is, it's a

10:50

genuine question. Yeah, yeah, it's a

10:52

common sense human being, you know, you can

10:54

see the benefits of that. Unfortunately it would

10:56

just be interpreted as defeatism and throwing in

10:58

the towel and you'd end up with,

11:01

you know, headlines all over the

11:03

place saying, you know, end

11:06

of the contest and why bother to keep

11:08

going and call the election tomorrow. And

11:11

you, you know, that short changes

11:13

your candidates, it short changes your

11:15

supporters, it short changes the process

11:17

and I think, you know,

11:20

you find a form of words, it's terrible, I

11:22

sound like the most ghastly spin doctor, you

11:25

find a form of words to talk about

11:27

winning, to talk about fighting back. Some

11:30

of the points you just made, you know, you

11:32

know, support your local candidates, so, you know,

11:34

think about the local issues but

11:36

you've got to keep on going on making the case.

11:39

You know, you can't chat to the

11:41

public through an election campaign as though they were

11:43

mate in the pub. You've got

11:45

to, you've got to

11:48

maintain some kind of public

11:50

position because you're involved in a

11:52

very public process and it's

11:54

a process that is very central to, you

11:57

know, our democracy. So.

12:00

So what I don't think you can I

12:02

don't think you can find a form of

12:04

words that says I know I'm not getting

12:06

there But anyway, I'm gonna bang on Without

12:09

taking quite a hit yeah for that so

12:12

I mean finally they're different now Matt. It's

12:14

so different We we we had looking back

12:16

on it. We had a relatively easy life.

12:19

You know, there was no social media There

12:21

was no internet. We relied on c-fax Um,

12:25

you know we were you know, how

12:27

did we know what was happening out there and well journalists

12:29

told us phoned us up Um, we

12:31

sent people to sit at the back of

12:33

press conferences, uh with the other parties. Um,

12:35

you know, you relied on some

12:38

of your colleagues, you know Candidates

12:40

and other ministers to phone you up and tell you

12:42

what was going on So you're sitting in the back

12:44

of the car with the prime minister or in the

12:46

back of the bus or in the back of the

12:49

plane and you're you're juggling so many

12:51

things you don't have time to get

12:53

navel gets it And

12:56

you know, you're you're you've got to be on

12:58

time. You've got to follow the diary shows You've

13:00

got to know where you're going. You've got to

13:02

know who the candidate is there You've got to

13:04

know what the local issues are. You've got to have

13:06

proper briefing for that You've got to keep him briefed

13:08

about world events and other things because he could

13:10

be doorstepped about them at any stage So in between

13:12

every venue you're on the phone checking with central office

13:15

checking with number 10 It's frantic and

13:17

you don't have time to pause and think

13:19

and that's why you go mad I mean

13:21

I was talking by the end of the

13:24

campaign completely barking mad If anyone had

13:26

come up up to me, they'd probably I

13:28

thought I was completely saying rational calm,

13:30

you know effective Um, most people

13:32

would have looked at me and thought I was sort

13:34

of bug-eyed loony Um because you're carrying these two things

13:36

in your head all the time. Of course you are

13:39

and you know You're

13:41

thinking about what you're going to do after Thursday You're

13:44

also thinking about Thursday night and how you're going to

13:46

manage all of that and we've talked about that You

13:48

and I a bit before and and but you're also

13:51

in the now you've got to get him to the

13:53

next venue You've got to get you've got to get

13:55

up put your trousers on get to work. Yeah It's

13:59

always good to speak to you take me right back there. I seem

14:01

to remember in 97 trying to find out what happened in

14:03

the seat I lived in by waiting for the pages to

14:05

tick over on C-Facts or tele-tech. Yeah. Because the only way

14:07

you could find out, yeah, sort of waiting, you know, I

14:09

can't remember what the seat would have been if it was

14:11

said more taunted. And you sort of, oh god, no, I've

14:13

just missed it. I'm going to go through the whole alphabet

14:15

again. It's one of my

14:18

abiding memories, Matt, of number 10 was

14:20

the private office television, which had the

14:22

C-Facts, even when you watch broadcast news

14:24

on it, the C-Facts sort

14:27

of format was still visible.

14:29

It's been sort of burned into the

14:31

screen. Hal James there,

14:33

former advisor to John Major in the 1990s.

14:37

Up next, there's someone in reception

14:39

how news stories sometimes just turn

14:41

up in the office. Do

14:50

you remember what it's like being in your 20s?

14:52

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best. years

18:00

ago before the closure of many of these

18:02

receptions, you'd sit in

18:04

a newsroom and there would be a front

18:06

desk, a receptionist who would basically feel the

18:09

public coming in. And they would often come

18:11

through to the newsroom, you're all busy typing

18:13

away in a busy journalistic environment. And

18:16

the receptionist, often with a kind of

18:18

air of nerves or unease, would come

18:20

in and go, there's

18:22

someone in reception? You

18:25

know that there's something really weird.

18:28

You learn to read your receptionist there and

18:30

very often it's something really odd. And of

18:32

course a reporter has to go and deal

18:34

with it. So where were you talking about?

18:37

Where was your reception? So mine

18:39

was at the Crawley News in West Sussex, that was my

18:41

first paper, and then later at the Dorkian Leatherhead Advertiser in

18:43

Surrey. Great names, great names all the time. It's all the

18:45

time, it's exactly the same, we had an office at the

18:47

top of the High Street and

18:49

it was a sort of three-storey building and

18:51

so, and actually because I was the most

18:53

junior person when I first joined. So you were

18:56

the trainee? Always the trainee, it's the

18:58

real character of reception. We've

19:00

got Fiona Hamilton here as well, now chief reporter at the

19:02

Times, far too grand to be dealing with anyone with reception

19:05

now. You

19:07

were a local journalist in Australia, so is this

19:09

a universal thing? It's

19:13

global, definitely. I started my career at the

19:15

Sunshine Coast Daily, which is north of Brisbane.

19:18

Sunshine Coast does come next week. Yeah, it was

19:20

fantastic. And then I went to the Gold Coast

19:22

Bulletin, which was a large regional, Australia's largest, but

19:25

definitely that cast of characters that

19:28

Alex is talking about I can really relate to.

19:31

We used to have a guy at the Gold

19:33

Coast who, he was a pitbull campaigner and he

19:35

used to come into reception with his dogs, which

19:38

was quite scary. A pro pitbull, don't I?

19:40

He was pro pitbull, yeah, and he would

19:42

bring his dogs with him. Okay,

19:45

let's get into what we're basically here for, which is your

19:47

best stories. Alex, when

19:49

you think of your, there's someone on your reception, what was

19:51

it that made you want to write the book? What is

19:53

the story? Who was the person in reception that

19:55

you think of? So for me, it

19:57

was a guy who walked into the Crawley News backing about

28:00

editor Mike Smith sent us this story.

28:03

When I was a reporter on the

28:05

Western Gazette newspaper in Yovell, I

28:07

was once told there was someone in

28:10

reception with a story. I went down

28:12

to find a guy with pretty wild

28:14

staring eyes, hair all over

28:16

the place, muddy trousers and a very

28:19

large shovel. He told me, very

28:21

matter of factly, that he had found

28:24

the grave of Joseph of Arimathea, the

28:26

biblical figure who allegedly buried Christ

28:29

and who was supposed to be the

28:31

first keeper of the Holy Grail. He

28:33

told me exactly where he dug up the

28:35

grave, not far from Glastonbury, and said it

28:37

was a great scoop that he wanted to

28:39

give the paper. As you can imagine, I

28:41

was trying to get some more specific details

28:43

out of him when he started waving the

28:45

spade around his head saying that if I

28:47

didn't believe immediately, there was going to be,

28:49

in his words, big trouble. We decided

28:51

in the end that perhaps this one wasn't worth

28:53

following up, but for all I know, he's probably

28:55

still digging for it. That one's

28:58

really tickled, mate. Oh,

29:01

dear. I do remember someone coming

29:03

into the talk times once with a carry bag of

29:05

VHSs that he'd bought in a charity shop, which he

29:07

wanted to return to people. And then just, so he

29:09

could be put in a pic because he'd got like

29:11

family videos on. And then just as

29:13

a separate point, he said, oh, yeah, MI5, he put a

29:16

camera in my eye, and I just started being able to

29:18

get him bogged down in MI5. Who's the superglued? Is that

29:20

one of yours? That's

29:24

one from the book. Okay. Tell us about that one.

29:27

Yeah. So a man walked in, I think it was

29:29

a Kent messenger. He walked in and

29:31

just slapped both his hands on the front counter

29:33

and the hands were covered in superglue. He hadn't

29:35

asked the paper to do anything yet. He didn't

29:37

lead with, could you cover my story? And then

29:40

do the process. He just went straight to the glue.

29:43

And so he did have a story, but what

29:45

happened was a bunch of firefighters and paramedics

29:47

got around and really the issue

29:50

became getting the hands off the table, not the

29:52

whatever story the guy wanted to tell. Gave

29:54

you quite a good story. Yeah.

29:56

It wasn't me. It's one of the people

29:58

in the book. But yeah, eventually the editor

30:00

used his this sets the story in time

30:02

to some degree but he uses Blockbuster video

30:05

card to actually very nice heal the hands

30:07

off the desk very good very

30:09

good this is what Blockbuster video card that is

30:11

excellent this is one another friend of the show

30:13

at Will Haywood who's the Welsh

30:16

affairs editor at Wales online so

30:19

when I was a trainee reporter at Wales online

30:21

and the Western Mail and Cardiff we had someone

30:23

come in and say they'd like to speak to

30:25

a reporter so as the dog's

30:27

body I got sent down and she had

30:29

a story about a woman who had died and

30:32

she wanted a tribute to her which was fairly

30:34

common I actually did tributes for the South Wales

30:36

Echo which is the Cardiff paper and

30:39

I said so tell me about it she goes well

30:41

she was very very well known and I

30:43

was like oh really and she said she

30:45

was the Queen of swinging in South Wales after

30:48

some time it became clear that she

30:50

meant swinging that someone might partake in

30:53

with their partner and another couple but

30:55

I it was strictly

30:57

season and I was thinking it was about

30:59

dancing and I was like oh yeah so

31:01

she she danced a lot did she dance

31:03

in a couple or and she

31:05

was like oh yeah there was a lot of couples and

31:08

for probably about five ten minutes

31:10

I was thinking she meant swing dancing

31:12

and she meant a different kind of

31:15

swinging and this led to actually a

31:17

piece that I did where we looked

31:19

at the secret world of swinging

31:21

in South Wales so that was eye-opening

31:24

for a trainee early on in their

31:26

career. These are really

31:28

good that's Will Howard there. Let's get through some more

31:30

of these, Kevin Andrews Scottish political editor at the Times.

31:34

When I was a news reporter in Dundee

31:37

I was called down to the reception of the

31:39

paper that I worked for to speak

31:41

to a man who had a

31:44

complaint about what he said was

31:46

council officers misusing electric charging points

31:48

for cars so I

31:51

went out with him with a photographer to

31:53

see if this was the case not only

31:55

did it turn out to not

31:57

be the case that way we couldn't find any evidence of it

32:00

but the gentleman in question

32:03

then told us a pro of nothing

32:05

while we were in a car with him

32:08

that he had been the main suspect in

32:10

a particularly grisly murder which took

32:13

place in a vehicle and that

32:15

police had raided his former

32:17

home in Aberdeen a good number of years

32:19

ago as part of that. Needless

32:22

to say we made our excuses

32:24

and weft to coin a

32:26

journalistic freeze and although

32:29

the man protested his innocence I

32:31

didn't bother taking him up on

32:33

offers to follow up on that story again. Excellence,

32:36

the pronunciation of murder there from Keira, that

32:38

was a proper, on a sort

32:40

of a trusted, it's just message here, Tristan in Cornwall

32:42

says after decades as a local news editor the

32:45

best calling we had was from a farmer

32:47

who said someone was burying bodies in the

32:49

next field. I handed the call

32:51

to whichever journalist had just refused to make me

32:54

a coffee that morning while I physically banged my

32:56

head on the desk opposite. However as

32:58

it turned out someone was literally burying

33:00

bodies in the next field and the

33:02

murder trial followed and this is the

33:04

problem Alex is that you don't, there

33:07

might be something in it. Yeah and

33:10

as a journalist you've always got that

33:12

what if I turn down the most

33:14

amazing story so there's one in the

33:16

book where someone phoned into BBC Radio

33:18

Lincolnshire and said that Osama bin Laden

33:20

was hiding out in Skegness and

33:23

obviously you think he's

33:26

not hiding in Skegness but what if he is? Yeah.

33:28

Because if you turn that down I mean that is

33:30

the biggest, that's not just the biggest story of your

33:32

career that's the you know that's the biggest story of

33:34

a decade but

33:36

I think in that particular case that didn't turn out to be correct.

33:38

And Fiona you must even get this now, Chief Report of

33:41

the Times, people will come probably via email now rather than

33:43

turning up a reception but there's always

33:45

the possibility there might be something in it. Oh

33:47

absolutely you've got to check everything out haven't you

33:49

and you've got to give time to it just

33:51

in case because you wouldn't want to lose that

33:53

fantastic story just because it sounds

33:56

fantastical. Yeah shall

33:58

I tell you my Michael Jackson story? Go on. We got a bit

34:01

of Michael Jackson just to set the scene. So

34:03

I was at the Taunton Times. Look,

34:06

I'm a bit of Jackson. I was at the

34:09

Taunton Times. And I'd only been there a

34:11

few months. I hadn't even been sent off from a training.

34:13

I think I was on sort of paid work experience and

34:16

was told there's someone in reception. So I go

34:18

down, there's this guy there called Matt, and he

34:20

runs local Tae Kwon Do lessons. And

34:23

could I put his Tae Kwon Do lessons in the

34:25

paper? Like Tuesday nights, the

34:27

church hall, whatever. It's not funny to do

34:29

that. And they said, oh, yeah, because I'm friends with

34:31

Michael Jackson. I was all right, fine. So it was Tuesdays in

34:34

the church hall, the Tae Kwon Do lessons. And he came in

34:36

every week, because I'll be now doing Tae Kwon Do lessons on

34:38

Thursdays. And I'm friends with Michael Jackson. I was like, oh, I'm

34:40

doing Tae Kwon Do lessons on Thursdays on Thursdays. And I was

34:42

like, oh, god, that bloke's in reception again. He says he's friends

34:44

with Michael Jackson. And then a few of

34:46

us went on for ages. And then he came in one day and he

34:48

said, yeah, Michael Jackson is coming to

34:50

Exeter. And my

34:53

Tae Kwon Do kids are going to

34:55

be doing the security. And

34:58

I said, go back upstairs. So he won't believe what he

35:00

said now, that Michael Jackson's coming to Exeter and these Tae

35:02

Kwon Do kids are doing security. And then

35:04

a few weeks later, it was announced, because Yori

35:07

Geller, who was friends with Michael Jackson, had

35:10

got involved in Exeter City Football Club. I

35:12

think it had some financial problems. And they

35:14

thought, celebrity Yori Geller might drop up some

35:16

money. And it was announced that

35:19

Michael Jackson was going to go to Exeter. So

35:21

I said, well, can I go to cover

35:23

the Tae Kwon Do paper? Then I was like, oh,

35:25

bless him. He's only been in Jez and five minutes.

35:28

He actually thinks Michael Jackson's going to text her. So

35:30

they told me, the editor told me, I could go

35:32

to Exeter. On condition on the

35:34

way there, I stopped and did a feature with a

35:36

man who grew a lot of Swedes. So

35:38

I spent the morning speaking to the King of Swedes. The

35:41

only story was he's got a lot of Swedes, literally like a

35:43

shed full of Swedes. And then I drove

35:45

to Exeter. And we would think, of course, Michael Jackson's

35:47

not going to Exeter. Of course not. And

35:50

we got to the football ground, Exeter City Football Ground. And

35:52

it was full of people. They'd obviously sold tickets to try

35:54

and raise the money. And they brought

35:56

the media out onto the pitch. And the entire

35:59

place booed us. because obviously they all love Michael

36:01

Jackson, they hate the video. And we're standing on the pitch saying

36:03

it's some point they're gonna have to say he's not coming. And

36:06

there's gonna be a riot. And

36:08

the gates, because it's got small ground, like

36:10

one end of the ground is just a brick wall

36:12

and the other side is a road, and the gates

36:14

open and in comes like this chitty chitty bang bang

36:16

car, open top gold car. Sitting

36:19

in the back is Yuri Geller

36:21

and David Blaine. And

36:24

standing on the side of the car, like hanging

36:26

on as the car came in,

36:28

is Michael Jackson. And

36:30

everyone was like, I don't understand, because

36:32

this is like 2002. So he

36:35

was incredibly famous without a lot of the

36:37

stuff we've heard since, you know, some of

36:39

it. Anyway, he gets off and he comes

36:42

running around the pitch, and then they lined

36:44

up a load of children in

36:46

wheelchairs of the pitch. And I found

36:48

myself behind this group, and I've got

36:50

amazing photos that I've taken of Michael

36:53

Jackson, which is stood of front to me. Like this

36:55

debt everyone said, bless, you know, the guy came in

36:58

reception. Anyway, they then get up on stage. And

37:02

Yuri Geller introduces Michael Jackson,

37:05

and says, this isn't the clip we've

37:07

got, is it? We've got a clip

37:09

of Michael Jackson speaking. Yeah. So Yuri

37:11

Geller gets up and says, when I

37:14

asked Michael, if he would come

37:16

into Exeter City Football Club, he said, will there be

37:18

children? And he said yes. And he said, say it

37:20

is done. And so here's Michael

37:22

Jackson. And this

37:24

is, I think, James Whale introducing

37:27

Michael Jackson on stage. Ladies

37:29

and gentlemen, welcome Michael Jackson and

37:31

Yuri Geller to the pitch of

37:33

Exeter City Football Club. Sadly,

37:37

sadly, we live

37:40

in a state of fear. We

37:42

must learn to live and love each

37:45

other before it's too late. We

37:48

have to stop. It

37:50

went on like that a lot. He didn't sing. There

37:52

was no performance. He just did that. But even

37:55

though it wasn't raining, the

37:57

guy standing on stage holding the umbrella

38:00

for Michael Jackson was the Taekwondo man

38:02

who came into reception. The

38:04

whole thing was completely true. It's

38:07

a salutary tale. It's a salutary tale. Which,

38:10

when I've had a drink, goes on much longer, that

38:13

story. Let's have a couple more. This

38:15

is David Byers, the deputy proper editor at

38:17

the Times. When

38:20

I worked at the Gloucester Citizen newspaper, I

38:23

was told to go downstairs to meet somebody

38:25

at reception who said to me that the

38:27

urine of six dogs has been pouring down

38:29

on my head for weeks. So

38:32

we went to the Forest of Dean to check

38:34

it out and met the owner of the flat

38:36

above who told us that it wasn't the urine

38:38

of six dogs that was pouring down on the

38:41

poor lady below. It was my

38:43

urine. I am on the

38:45

floor and I am on the floor every day. So

38:48

we had a front-page headline the following

38:50

day entitled, urine pours down on my

38:52

head, which was the best-selling newspaper from

38:54

the Gloucester Citizen that month. When I

38:56

went for a job interview a couple

38:58

of years later for a very serious

39:00

political correspondent job, I was asked what

39:02

my favourite ever front-page story was. And

39:05

I told them it was urine pours down on my

39:07

head and then explained the story. I was greeted with

39:09

baffled looks and I didn't get the job. Well

39:12

more full then, frankly. More full then. We've

39:14

got time for one more. This

39:17

is the former editor of Channel

39:19

4 News, Dorothy Byrne. In

39:22

my first TV job there was someone

39:24

at reception who I was sent down

39:26

to see. I was new and

39:28

I was told the new person always

39:31

went to speak to the callers at reception.

39:34

I went down and the visitor told me

39:37

that people from the television programme

39:39

I worked for, Granada reports, were

39:41

following her. I took

39:43

this very seriously, asking her if

39:45

she could think of any reason she was being

39:48

followed. Was she involved

39:50

in any untoward activity or

39:52

was she in other ways an interesting

39:55

person? I was also

39:57

concerned that perhaps she was being staked

39:59

out. in some undercover operation that

40:01

I must not lo. I

40:04

asked her to describe the

40:06

people following her. The descriptions

40:08

were uncannily similar to

40:10

Richard Medley, Judy Finnegan, and

40:12

Tony Wilson, the presenters of

40:15

the program. Only

40:17

then did I think to ask the

40:19

obvious question, where were

40:21

these people when they followed her? And

40:23

she said, in the TV

40:25

set. Oh, these are so...

40:30

Does it make you want to go back to local news here? It

40:32

sort of does. It's just such a great memory.

40:34

And it's so sad that local newspapers are not

40:36

what they were. Because it's such a good grounding.

40:38

And you do learn the questions that you need

40:40

to ask. Yeah. Because there's nothing worse than discovering

40:42

that. I should have asked that question. We should have

40:44

done that. Yeah. And to learn that there might be

40:47

something in it. Yeah. It's always worth turning up. I'm

40:49

starting to think something I never thought I

40:51

would say, which is that maybe the UK

40:53

public are more eccentric than the Australian. We

40:57

lead the world. A certain amount of overlap.

40:59

Let's end with this one. Jon's just been

41:01

in touch, saying, when I was a photographer

41:03

on the East Anglian Daily Times, I

41:05

was sent to photograph a charity

41:07

cabbage auction in a

41:09

barn in Suffolk. It

41:12

ended in a full-on fight between a

41:14

number of elderly ladies as there were

41:16

not enough cabbages to go around. I

41:18

ended up having to stop taking photos

41:20

and step in to break up the

41:23

fight. The headline was, Cabbage Fever. Alex,

41:26

you're going to have to write a sequel to this book already.

41:29

Yeah, maybe ten more. But it's

41:31

been brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you for letting

41:33

us take a trip down memory lane. Alex Morrison, there's

41:35

someone on reception. He's out now, isn't it? You can

41:37

get him right now. In fact, somebody's already been in

41:39

touch, so they've already bought it. So there we are.

41:41

Fantastic. Sounds so tough. Fiona, get back to your emails.

41:43

See what madness awaits you. Can't wait. In your emails.

41:46

Fiona Hamilton, Chief of Board of Times. Thank you as

41:48

well to Jamie from The Eye and to all of

41:50

our colleagues who sent in their memories of being on

41:52

local papers as well. And that's all we've got time

41:54

for on Politics Out the Boring Bits. This week, but

41:56

head on over to How To Win An Election where

41:58

there's a bonus episode of Peter and...