What would make you come back from holiday to work?
5th July 2024
What would persuade you to interrupt your holiday to work? The answer in my case wasn’t a crisis or an enormous paycheck. It was the invitation to fly by the seat of my pants for four hours in the middle of the night and then, after too little sleep, to return for another four, rather more organised hours. I’m talking about broadcasting the results of the general election 2024.
Very few people had predicted that we’d go to the polls in the summer, my other half - a fellow journalist - and I among them. Most folk were talking about autumn or early winter. We’d therefore booked our annual visit to Wales for the long days at the end of June / start of July.
It was with a substantial pang of regret that, on the day of Rishi Sunak’s rain soaked announcement outside No 10 in late May, I realised I was pretty much bound to miss working on this fascinating, frustrating drama. I’ve always enjoyed covering elections and, since becoming a full-time presenter, have stayed up all night reporting on everything from local by-elections to the Brexit Referendum. This year there was also the slight issue that I was no longer working for the BBC, having taken voluntary redundancy in November last year as part of major changes to local radio.
I joined the Beeb exactly 35 years ago in July1989, so my first working general election was 1992. I vividly remember returning at dawn to the dew soaked garden of my rented house in Herefordshire after reporting live on the declarations from the seats I was covering for BBC Hereford and Worcester. Liberal Democrat hopes were thwarted as two Conservative MPs were once again returned.
By the year of Labour’s landside victory in 1997, I’d moved to BBC Radio Leeds, we’d bought a house in Headingley and I was presenting the breakfast show. My diary for the day after, 2nd May, records that I was at the studios by 3.15am ready to broadcast between five and ten in the morning. That Saturday, heading for the shops, I bumped into Labour’s Harold Best - our new MP - outside the Arndale Centre. He was one of the new members who - if they’re honest - probably hadn’t expected to be starting a new job in London after the weekend.
I then covered the 2001, 2005 and 2010 elections still presenting the breakfast show - the last involving a phone-in with Gordon Brown, who joined Georgey Spanswick and me during the dying days of his premiership. Most memorable, in radio terms, was the middle one of those when our producers persuaded a family in Leeds (which included Labour, Conservative, Green and first time voters) to let us camp in their front room. Among our guests was the area’s newly elected MP, the Lib Dem Greg Mulholland.
Having watched with awe the distinguished TV and radio reporter John Cundy presenting election programmes since arriving at BBC Radio Leeds in 1993, the baton was handed to me for the trio of general elections in 2015, ‘17 and ‘20. Typically nothing much happens in Yorkshire, after the excitement of the exit poll at 10pm, until about three in the morning. Then - fuelled by caffeine and sugary snacks - the stampede of results starts. It’s a thrill trying to cover all the declarations and - with the help of a team of reporters, a studio pundit and winners and losers - to make sense of it all. It always felt like a broadcasting privilege but a democratic one too.
And so we arrive here in July 2024, where having already dragged our ageing caravan (29 this year) from its home in Yorkshire to the southern fringes of Snowdonia, I expected to be catching up on the election results on a battery powered radio looking at the Mawddach estuary. Instead I was in my very happy (but also rather tired and slightly stressed) place - on air. Not long after the voting date was announced I’d been approached by the BBC to ask if I’d consider a return to the airwaves for election night. It didn’t take me long to say yes!
In truth I was rather anxious that, eight months to the day since my last live programme (5th November to 5th July), I would have forgotten what to do. It turns out muscle memory kicked in, operating the equipment as if I hadn’t been away, and mouth and brain just about engaged with each other too. I was handed the radio baton at 1am for four hours right across Yorkshire (BBC Radios Humberside, Leeds, Sheffield and York), getting it back at 2pm that same day for a further four hours specifically for West Yorkshire.
When I finally returned home, after celebrating with a fish and chip tea, I had an early night and drove back to damp Wales the following morning. It was a surreal but thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating hiatus in our Welsh holiday. I didn’t think I’d missed being on air all that much, but it was really great to be back, covering my ninth general election for the BBC.
So, now you know what would tempt ME back from my holidays: don’t tell the bosses but I’d have done it for nothing, although the cash - when I finally get it - will be very welcome!
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