I can distinctly remember being in the back seat of the family car on a long journey (to Devon probably – that drive felt interminable), looking at all the other cars full of people and thinking, “Where on earth are they all going and why?” As my eyes went funny trying to keep up with the traffic flicking past, it blew my mind to imagine everyone as the main character in the dramas of their own lives, with a busy morning behind them and a plan for the afternoon ahead. It’s a thought which has never really left me. As a middle-aged woman, one of my ideas of top entertainment is to people-watch. You’ll find me at it in cafés, bars, on trains. I’m completely contented when I’m losing myself in the passing tide of main characters, imagining the scenes of their lives unfurling around them. The only thing that can beat it is to take the extra step and strike up a conversation. Not the drinks party kind with all that, “Did you come on the B359 or via Porchester?” The conversation with strangers I like is the bigger sort, with feelings and explanations of passions, maybe with a bit of childhood thrown in.
Early on in my career as a radio reporter, this preference for the personal over the professional was obvious. I didn’t make the greatest of newshounds, as I was often completely diverted by the lives which surrounded the headline. On one occasion, I was sent to interview an elderly couple on the outskirts of Peterborough. I remember their welcoming bungalow with ornaments carefully arranged on a mantel and a calendar of cat photos hanging in the kitchen. After switching off the recorder, instead of hurrying back to file my piece, I ended up chatting some more and the conversation meandered around to how the couple first met… It is a story I have never forgotten.
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