Matt Nixson

The popular DJ on being forced out of his Radio 2 show, getting his own back, and his dark debut thriller

SIMON Mayo is laughing approvingly about how thriller writer Lee Child took revenge on the bosses who axed him from Granada TV by appropriating their names for baddies in his early Jack Reacher bestsellers. After being forced out of his Drivetime show despite 37 years with the BBC, I wonder whether Mayo had been tempted to “do a Lee Child” in his own debut thriller and stick it to the Radio 2 controllers who treated him so shabbily.

He chuckles knowingly, pauses and then says: “You know when you write an article and hand it in and someone says, ‘I’m not sure that’s wise’? Well, that’s pretty much what happened with this. I’m well aware of what Lee did – and it was a very neat idea.”

And if he had followed suit, no one would blame him. Mayo found fame as the Radio 1 breakfast show host in the 1980s before moving to 5 Live and then Radio 2 in 2010, where he soon established himself as the voice of Drivetime, winning six million listeners and multiple awards.

So it came as a shock, not least of all to the genial broadcaster, who found out via his agent, when bosses rejigged his show by introducing female co-host Jo Whiley in an attempt to redress a perceived gender imbalance at Radio 2.

Despite their long-standing friendship, and much to the displeasure of loyal listeners, the show’s delicate balance was upset and, after struggling gamely on for five months, Mayo quit the station in December 2018.

While he has remained diplomatic about his former bosses, and is enjoying building a new morning audience on classical music station Scala since its launch in March, as well as continuing his highly-successful Radio 5 Live film show with Mark Kermode, the nature of his departure clearly rankles.

“Trust me, I was cross. I just came to the conclusion that I needed to leave to get my life back,” he says. “I still work for the BBC with the film show but the controller had made things pretty unbearable for me so it was easier to start again.

“My intention was to stay there for ever, but it didn’t work out and I decided to leave when Scala approached me with a brand new project. It’s fallen rather well but I tend to refer to everything that went on with the catchall phrase, ‘2018’. It’s certainly true it was my least favourite year but we move on and things in general have fallen very well for me so I have no complaints.

“I’m doing more radio shows than I’ve ever done, Scala’s performed very well in the lockdown and the film show’s still very positive.”

HE PAUSES, sighs, and continues: “It was tough but I’ve moved on.” As one of the Corporation’s former high earners, Mayo, 61, doesn’t miss having his salary picked over annually by the BBC’s critics.

“It was a turkey shoot every year. In fact, it

[his departure] probably all started from the fact that they started to print the salaries, so I’m very happy I’m not part of that any more,” he admits.

“There were injustices that needed to be addressed, there are in all walks of life, but I am nothing but grateful for the way things have turned out. I always had great bosses and then there was one time it didn’t work out.”

Fortunately Mayo’s new boss at

TEAMED UP: Despite being friends, it didn’t work out for Simon and Jo, left, on Drivetime. Above, in the early 1990s

Bauer Media’s digital station Scala is one of his old Radio 1 breakfast show producers.

And since lockdown, he has been happily broadcasting from his spare bedroom – dubbed Egton Five after an old Radio 1 studio sign he helped himself to when the station’s former Egton House HQ was demolished – at the north London home he shares with wife Hilary, their three grown-up children and pet dog.

“I walk across the landing and go into my spare bedroom. I haven’t left my house for a week, literally,” he laughs. “A couple of times there’s been engineering issues. My broadband disappeared which takes me off the air. But, in general, radio’s very nimble and the technology’s worked in our favour. “With a small mixer, a laptop, headphones and a mike, I can do my whole show. The film show’s slightly more problematic – an all-speech show is more difficult – but the Scala show is fine coming from my bedroom. “There won’t be any official Rajar [Radio Joint Audience Research] figures for a while because no one’s going around asking who’s listening to what but with streaming you immediately know how many people are listening on their computers. And that was up by 30 per cent in the first week in lockdown.”

With his broadcasting, writing and film show, Mayo has plenty to keep him going in what must be one of the country’s best jobs in culture and the arts.

“Now you put it like that, it sounds pretty good,” he smiles. “Maybe I should be more grateful. When you’re going from show to show and deadline to deadline it doesn’t always feel like that. But I absolutely have no complaints. The only thing I’d like to do is find more time to write.”

WHILE he jokes that he has “imposter syndrome”, his writing – a children’s series, Itch, soon to arrive on British TV, and Mad Blood Stirring, his 2018 epic historical novel which is heading for a big-screen adaptation – has increasingly won plaudits.

He is talking today about Knife Edge, a gripping – and decidedly dark – debut thriller featuring world-weary investigative journalist Famie Madden that is published today.

Having drawn on newsroom experience from his time at 5 Live, Simon starts with the brutal murders, in a terror attack, of seven members of the investigations team at Famie’s news agency, and concludes with an equally nerve-wracking set piece at Coventry Cathedral, near Warwick University where Mayo studied history and politics in the late 1970s.

In between, the pace rarely falters as the body count escalates. He explains: “A lot of it surprised me when I was writing it. I don’t always know where it came from.

“I wanted it to be believable, credible, I wanted to have a journalist at the heart of it: hard-working, committed, passionate and angry.

“Hopefully it’s scary and hopefully readers will warm to Famie. She’s very good at what she does but there’s a certain amount of management changes.

“She’s hanging on and she still enjoys what