The veteran Radio 4 broadcaster Jim Naughtie could hardly complain about the generous sendoff he got from the Today programme on Wednesday morning when he ended 21 years of 3am alarm calls and gruelling three-hour stints on air, complete with the occasional expletive.
Being the nice chap he is, he didn’t complain, though it did go on a bit even by his famously loquacious standards. By the time Naughtie ended his final rumination with John Humphrys, colleague and street-smart rival, he sounded as if he was in tears. Very Naughtie, he has his sentimental side, it is part of his charm.
Not that Radio 4 devotees have heard the last of him. Sixty-four and still full of energy, he will be back as a “special correspondent”, doing what he likes best – travelling, observing and talking. In refreshing the Today presenters lineup (more women, please!), the Beeb has been kind to its likably chaotic anchorman.
And why not, occasionally? In an age of celebrity, the media often make too much of the “me” factor and celebs doing things they should sensibly be kept away from. But early morning radio – I’m not just talking Radio 4 – has a uniquely intimate relationship with listeners, who are half asleep, dressing or eating breakfast. Naughtie’s soft east of Scotland lilt has been a gentle voice to wake up to.
What a richly satisfying career for an ambitious young grammar school thruster from a small town in Aberdeenshire. A politics wonk at the University of Aberdeen, he parlayed his talents – via the Aberdeen Press & Journal (still a legendary Scottish newspaper), the Scotsman in Edinburgh and London, plus a stint on the Guardian’s political team – into a wide-ranging career at the BBC. A lad of parts, as they say at home.
Not just in political programmes, either. A classical music enthusiast, he presented Opera News on Radio 3, hosted Radio 4’s Book Club and did some Proms on TV for many years. All that and one-off series such as The New Elizabethans and a string of books. Clever workaholics just can’t leave it alone. Unlike fellow Scot Andrew Marr, whose career parallels his own in some ways, Naughtie’s robust health defied the strain and his convivial, gregarious habits.
But politics has been the sheet anchor of his career. So it was appropriate that his last big interview as a Today presenter was in Wednesday’s prime 8.10 spot with John Major. The former prime minister had popped into a BBC radio car outside his home (inevitably the line went down mid-interview) to talk about Europe, but also to praise Naughtie before they switched off his mic.
Unlike Marr, who was much more of a public school bourgeois (and inevitably a Trot at Cambridge), Naughtie’s temperament is emollient, a natural moderate who strives to be fair to all sides, though he probably spoke a private truth when he once asked Ed Balls about when “we win the election”.
Almost certainly he is in favour of maintaining Scotland’s union with England, not an easy task for a famous broadcaster whose literary wife, Ellie, an ex-BBC producer, has moved the family base back to Edinburgh with only a toehold in London. But Naughtie is an exponent of the David Frost “kill them with kindness” school of interview. Tenacious but polite, not a Paxman or a Humphrys Torquemada. He will be courteous to them all, as his mother probably taught him.
I first met him in the press gallery corridor at Westminster in the early 80s, a very up-and-coming member of the Scotsman’s team (uniquely, most Scottish papers shared the same office), clearly smart and ambitious. We alternated as commentators on some long-forgotten late-night current affairs show.
Later, when I lived in Washington, we heard that Jim and Ellie were getting married. On the eve of their wedding there was a party at the then Observer correspondent Simon Hoggart’s flat which Neil Kinnock, making his first foray to Washington as Labour leader, attended.
Given Naughtie’s notorious willingness to do a two-minute radio spot at any invitation, someone suggested waking Jim up. My wife, Pat, a Kiwi, duly rang Jim – it must have been 4am in Britain – and deployed her native accent to put him off the scent. Would he come on Radio New Zealand in a few minutes to “talk about Mrs Thatcher’s accident”.
Mrs T hadn’t had one, so Jim knew nothing about it. But nothing stops a pro. He gulped and said: “Yes, of course.” Bingo, we had him! On his wedding day too! Kinnock was then put on the line to lead the mockery.
That was several years before Naughtie joined Today in 1994. The redoubtable Humphrys, a graduate of the school of hard knocks from the rough end of Cardiff, who became a foreign correspondent turned TV news anchor, had been on the programme for seven years, his co-anchor on day one.
Eight years older, there was inevitable talk of the succession passing to Jim. But it never quite worked out that way. Today presenters came and went, but the unstoppable Humphrys (now 72) was in the studio on Wednesday to see him off again, still the programme’s dominant presence. Beneath the affectionate banter it’s a tough world when the green on-air light goes on.
It will still go on for the versatile Naughtie, but in less demanding ways. Though it was not included in a compilation of his finest broadcast moments, he safely has his sliver of radio immortality. When Jim misnamed Jeremy Hunt on the programme, he even trended on Twitter.
