I worry less about little things after Maddy’s illness
As his memoir is published, Mark Austin talks to
about war-reporting, his daughter’s anorexia and how fitness helps his mental health OR more than 30 years, Mark thought it was just a teenage fad and Austin has covered some of kept telling her to ‘grow up’ and to the biggest news stories in eat. the world for IT V and now It was very difficult for several Sky, and witnessed firstyears and almost tore our family hand some of the most significant apart. I worked, because it gave events of our times while working as some sense of normality in the a foreign correspondent. middle of a nightmare and was a
The award-winning reporter – his distraction, but I don’t know if that accolades include five BAFTAs – has was the right thing to do. I didn’t covered the Iraq War (during which know how to handle it at all. his friend and colleague, Terry You couldn’t communicate with Lloyd, was killed by American Maddy, because anorexia had its gunfire), South Africa’s transition hold over her, controlled her, and from apartheid to democracy under was like a sort of demon within her. I Nelson Mandela and the Rwandan feel so guilty for telling her at one genocide, as well as natural disasters point : ‘If you really want to star ve such as the Haiti earthquake and the yourself to death, get on with it’. That Mozambique floods. came from complete desperation,
But the 60-year-old father-offrustration, being at my wits’ end three, who lays bare his experiences and just wanting the whole situation on and off-screen in his autobiograto go away. phy, And Thank You For Watching: A It’s a great relief that she’s now at Memoir, reveals his most traumatic university, healthy and happy, and experience was far removed from I’m incredibly proud of her for war zones. talking publicly about the
It took place at illness. We made a documenhome, watching his tary together to help other eldest daughter, parents and highlight the lack Maddy, battle to of mental health resources survive the eating needed to treat a condition disorder and mental which costs lives. We’re so illness anorexia lucky to still have our nervosa. At her lowest daughter. point, she weighed only five-and-a-half stone.
Here, Mark, who lives in Surrey, talks about the experience, looking after his own mental wellbeing, along with his journalistic career and why he has no plans to retire...
FMILLIONS of people will be quitting the booze for Dry January.
The estimated 4.2 million going alcohol free this month can expect immediate physical, psychological and emotional benefits.
Analysis of more than 2,500 social media posts discussing Dry January talk about improved sleep, appearance, energy levels, weight loss and levels of selfesteem.
The study, published in the journal Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, revealed fundraisI’ VE consciously made an ing for charity was effort to worry far less about not a prime reason day-to-day little things, which has to take part. come about partly because of Report author Maddy’s illness. I used to worry on Dr Henry Yeothe small stuff of life, say whether I mans, of Leeds was going to miss out on covering a University, said: story, or being in the right place to “Dry January focuses report an event. on the positives to encourage
I know now that, every now and people to become new, low-alcohol then, big things will come along versions of themselves.” when you really have to be strong, NO, I’m still as passionate about Also those people taking part in and they are what’s really worth reporting news, as I was when I Dry January can expect to be worrying about and concentrating started out in my 20s. News is an drinking less six months later. on. The rest, you can’t control and addiction, and working in 24-hour A separate study of 800 doesn’t really matter much anyway. news for Sky is a new lease of life. participants by Sussex University There’s a very good saying: ‘Nothing I SURVIVED, or at least have so far, Although I’m 60, I feel the clock has revealed the longer effect of matters very much and few things largely due to an innate cowardice. stopped at 52. I simply don’t count taking part in the abstinence matter at all’. I’ve found cowardice is a much the rest of the years. Running and challenge. By August the average
My wife, Catherine, a doctor better protection than any amount swimming around three times a number of drinking days per week dealing with life and death on the of flak jackets, helmets and week helps clear my mind, and I had dropped from 4.3 to 3.3 while front line in A&E hospitals, has armoured vehicles. play golf. I think keeping fairly fit units consumed per drinking day always been very good at grounding I’m not a naturally brave person, helps mental health. dropped on average from 8.6 to me whenever 7.1. I’ve got stressed about who likes covering wars and gets an work over the years, by telling me, adrenaline rush from it, so I decided And Thank You For Watching: A Seven out of 10 participants
‘It’s important but in the end it’s early on I’d take risks but they’d be Memoir by Mark Austin is pubslept better and had more energy only television’. calculated. That’s stopped me going lished by Atlantic Books, £20. during January while six out of 10 IT was very upsetting at times, but cathartic in a way to revisit memories of what I’d witnessed over the years. At the time things happened, I was lucky I was able to mentally file away in a box the bad stuff I saw.
The only exception was the Rwandan genocide in 1994, which was horrific, and as a father it was even harder seeing children suffering, maimed or dead. I know reporters who experience nightmares and flashbacks of that time.
The book proved to me that I hadn’t processed a lot of what I’d seen, and I think it’s been good for my mental health to finally do that. Frankly, viewers only see a tiny percentage of the sheer horror and dreadful things, because you have to self-censor on grounds of taste and acceptability. to many places and doing many things in war zones, which has probably saved my life and the crew’s.
Sometimes, of course, you get it wrong, and my biggest mistake was in Bophuthatswana, South Africa, in the months before Nelson Mandela was elected. There was rioting, and at one point I was marched into a field with a gun pointing at my head. I thought, ‘What on earth am I doing here? I must be mad. I’m going to die’. In general and very worryingly, I think the world’s a much more dangerous place for journalists, as they’re now seen as legitimate targets by people such as Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other terrorist groups, who view them almost as extensions of the state.