On the Road: John Humphrys
John Humphrys tells Louise Flind about Aberfan, Watergate, his love of Wales and his hatred of noise
Anything you can’t leave home without? Something to read and I never get it right. When I go to Belfast to record Mastermind, there’s not much time as we do five programmes a day, and I’ll take enough for a trip to Jupiter.
Something you really miss? I miss quiet. Twenty years ago, I bought my house for two reasons: rather absurdly, I was becoming a father again and it has a big garden, and it’s in a very quiet square. I detest extraneous noise. I won’t eat in restaurants with background music. I’m a typically boring old fart in that respect.
Do you travel light? Yes, years of being a foreign correspondent – I take the bare minimum except books.
Favourite destination? My place in the Peloponnese in Greece, which I haven’t been to for three years – one of the reasons I’ve stopped doing the Today programme.
Earliest childhood holiday memories? Going on the paddle steamer – we lived in Cardiff – to Weston-super-mare. If my parents were feeling ambitious and had enough money, we’d go to Ilfracombe.
What was travel like for you as a foreign correspondent? In some respects, it was absolutely wonderful, but the big stories were dangerous and I didn’t particularly enjoy being shot at or rocketed from the air. I was lucky enough to be in the States right from the beginning of the Watergate crisis. I was in the White House on the morning Richard Nixon resigned, in Zimbabwe when it stopped being Rhodesia and they ran up the Zimbabwean flag and I watched apartheid collapsing in South Africa.
Did you miss that kind of travelling when you were on the Today programme? No, not in the slightest.
What were your favourite bits of the US when you were a correspondent? I lived in Irvington, a very nice part of New York State, for a while; and in Washington. We had only four foreign correspondents for television, based abroad, in those days and I covered America north and south – so you tended not to have much time to think.
How was it travelling with your family to America/south Africa? They were young. Catherine hadn’t even started school – so they grew up as Americans. They were surprised when they went to their next school and didn’t say the Star-spangled Banner. In South Africa, it was much more difficult. I sent the kids to state school. In those days of apartheid, you were taught that the Afrikaans people were the greatest people and the black people were there to serve the white people. Very swiftly, you decide that’s not for you.
What are your favourite parts of Wales? Ceredigion, West Wales. I have a little farm there.
How has Wales changed since your childhood? When I was a kid, the poor people of Cardiff regarded the poor people of the valleys – in other words, the miners – as being the scum of the earth. My father used to refer to them as nanny goats.
How has Aberfan changed – was it very gruelling for you to return there? Yes, it was the greatest tragedy I’ve ever seen: men digging through a mountain of silt to get at the bodies of their children.
How has the BBC changed over the years? Obviously, technology has changed it enormously. Radio 4 has continued, thank the Lord, and I think is still pretty damn good.
Will you travel more now you’ve left the Today programme? I don’t want to, boring as it sounds. And I feel a serious amount of guilt at getting on aeroplanes, because of global warming.
Do you work on a plane/train? Oh yes. Apart from to Belfast for Mastermind I haven’t flown for three years.
Where did you go on your honeymoon? Dublin. It was the first time I’d ever been on an aeroplane – it was a Dakota DC-3.
Do you lie on the beach? God, no! Why on earth would I do that?
Strangest thing you’ve ever eaten? Sheep’s eyes in Rhodesia – which seems fairly unremarkable to me.
Favourite international food? In Greece, our nearest neighbour has a fishing boat and occasionally catches something rather delicious and we’ll grill it – and that’s as good as food gets.
Best and worst experiences in restaurants abroad? I’m not interested in restaurants.
Do you have a go at the local language? I used to be all right at French. And I did start to learn Afrikaans – my only achievement was that I beat John Simpson…
What is the strangest place you’ve ever slept in – while being away? In Nicaragua – the earthquake had just happened and my Christmas dinner was piranha fish. I slept on the floor of a very, very small café on the outskirts of Managua.
A Day Like Today by John Humphrys is published by William Collins (£20)