As he releases his latest spy novel, ITV News at Ten presenter Tom Bradby talks to about his anxiety, ‘rebooting himself’ and his refusal to be drawn on the royals
STEPHENSON HANNAH
working for Moscow.
Len Deighton’s ‘Game, Set and Match’ Cold War thrillers provided the inspiration for his love of the genre, he recalls.
“They were set in Cold War Berlin and London and were incredibly atmospheric, brilliantly written and full of complication, grey skies and double crosses.
“Then the Cold War went away and those kinds of thrillers disappeared.
“Writers who wanted to write the type of thriller I do, where there’s a rich political backdrop, struggled a bit.
“Then, as a gift to writers but not to humanity, the Cold War came back. The Russian president decided that he wanted, in a very muscular way, to restore Russia’s sphere of influence and take on the west.
“So you’ve got this new Cold War which is, if anything, greyer and more complicated than the last.”
His protagonist Kate Henderson suffers from some of the issues which Tom has faced, including insomnia and a predisposition to anxiety, something he wrote about in Secret Service when he was going through his own mental turmoil.
“When I look back, I’d written Secret Service about five months before I had to be signed off work. With very little psychological self-knowledge, I was creating an alter ego, writing a character who was on the way to having a breakdown, even though I had no concept that that was what was happening to me.”
He has learned now not to worry too much about the things you can’t control, or about fate, he says.
“Worrying about what threats are going to come round the corner tomorrow often makes people determined to try to control their fate by being driven and bullish. The problem is that no-one controls their fate.”
He treats writing as a hobby and is half way through Triple Cross, the third book in the series. The trilogy has been optioned by a producer and he’s hoping it will end up as a TV series.
After going through his own crisis, he says: “I do less. I’m careful not to overface myself and I think about things differently.
“I don’t worry about what the reviewers are going to say about my book or if it’s going to get into the bestseller list.
“I’ve trained myself to live for today more.”
His profile was raised last year thanks to his interviews with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during the making of the documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, in which the couple laid bare their unhappiness. Today, although he is still friends with both Harry and William, he is keen to distance himself from the debate.
“The anxiety around that was that you don’t want to let anyone down.
“I know Harry and Meghan, and William, and I found myself dragged into a maelstrom which I didn’t particularly enjoy and which was quite stressful.
“You find yourself wanting to do the right thing, which becomes very difficult because you become caught in someone else’s argument.” He won’t be drawn on how he feels the Sussexes have been treated by both the press and the royal family.
“I think I’ve said all I’m going to say on that.
“I’m a working journalist and not going to get involved with their battle with the press. It’s not my argument.
“They have got their story to tell and one day they may tell it. I just don’t want to be involved any more.” His Covid-19 bulletins may be depressing, but he is much more aware of how he can avoid plumbing the depths of despair again.
“The way out of any mental health crisis is to concentrate on today and this minute and try to worry a lot less about what’s going to happen tomorrow. “Today the sun is shining, who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? I could be hit by a car.
“There are other things I’m more likely to die of than the coronavirus.”
■ Double Agent by Tom Bradby is published by Bantam Press, priced £12.99