On The Road
Louise Flind
Is there anything you can’t leave home without? The ipad Pro and, if you’re a broadcaster, Strepsils or Vocalzones.
Something you really miss? In America in my gap year, I had a terrible, terrible heartache for British sausages. The people I was staying with got the chef at the British Embassy to rustle some up.
Favourite destination? For this, I’ve actually got a visual aid – a picture given to me by one of my sons of the Helford River in Cornwall. Every summer, I sail there with my brother.
Earliest childhood holiday memories? My mother and father didn’t get on very well. So we’d have separate holidays. The three children, would go with my mother to Dorset. There was no running water or electricity in the cottage – so my mother would cook with paraffin lamps and read to us.
Why did you go to Washington in your gap year? I’d got into Oxford to do politics and America was everything – America was Vietnam. It was 1963 and JFK was still in the White House; I saw Martin Luther King make his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
Memories of travelling the world as a political journalist? I went to Vietnam, to Cyprus when the Turks invaded, Israel when they attacked Lebanon, Moscow with Thatcher when she first met Gorbachev, to the Middle East and India with Tony Blair and John Major, and to West Africa with Blair. I decided the thing about being a foreign correspondent was simply to stress you were there. Not whether you were any good – I was a young inexperienced reporter, not very good – but I was there. In Northern Ireland, I reported on the first British soldier killed, in 1971. How close did you get to prime ministers? You get very close to them. I got very close to Thatcher on the RAF plane going to Moscow when she suddenly appeared at my side. I stood up, being a gent, and all the food and crockery went on the floor. She literally threw herself on to the ground and said, ‘You stay where you are – I’ll sort this out’.
And that famous moment in Paris in 1990 (pictured), just before Margaret Thatcher fell from power? The reason the scene outside the embassy in Paris was so bizarre was because Thatcher came out and I didn’t hear someone shouting, ‘She’s behind you, John.’ One of her aides was trying to get her to the microphone set up for the press call but I stopped her. It was a wonderful misunderstanding but people watching at home thought, ‘Christ, she’s lost her grip on power,’ and she resigned two days later.
Can you work on a plane or train? Coming back from Japan, Blair wanted to have a briefing but there was a Julia Roberts film on, which I watched instead. He got very cross. Somebody said that was the moment they knew I wanted to leave Westminster.
Where did you go on your honeymoon? We went to Paris in January. We had no money – two days and it was absolutely wonderful.
Do you lie on the beach? Mary and I tried that once in the South of France for half an hour. The idea that human beings are best doing nothing? That’s why prison is a punishment.
Strangest thing you’ve ever eaten? Camel in Libya.
Best and worst experiences in hotels when abroad? The Burj Al Arab – I had breakfast there with my brother and it cost £157 for the two of us – well worth doing.
Vietnam in 1972 – the pilot missed the runway and we were sent to the Grand Hotel in Danang: full of mosquitoes.
Biggest headache? I try to make sure that I’m ready to lose my stuff. When the bag arrives, I say, ‘Oh blast, it’s arrived. What a nuisance.’
What is the strangest place you’ve ever slept in? The Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia, Cyprus. The Turks invaded in 1974 and they had a machine gun positioned on top of the hotel. We were being kept as hostages. I smoked my last cigarette and listened to Round the Horn. Finally, the Canadians saved us and I did the lead story on the 6 o’clock radio news.
Top travelling tips? Travelling as a reporter is very different. When I was younger, if there was a bang or a bullet I would literally run towards it – I don’t mean I was being brave but foolhardy. Journalists are so used to saying no and charging forward. I don’t recommend that for normal travel – Mary gets very cross if I start pushing around.
What are you up to now? Defiantly unretired – plenty of adventures to come, I hope…