No answer to my ordeal on radio’s Any Questions? – David Blunkett

Way back in my early teens, and completely unlike many of my age group, I used to listen to BBC Radio’s Any Questions?. I’d already become obsessed with debating. We had, at my school (a residential school for blind youngsters) a debating society, where we competed in county and regional debating championships. By the age of 16, I fancied that I was really good at it!

In fact, listening to the panel of those days, chaired by Freddie Grisewood, I used to think to myself with what now appears to be incredible arrogance “I could do as well as they can!”

By the early 1980s, and as the leader of Sheffield City Council, unusual in terms of prominence in those days, I found my wish had come true. I was what used to be called a “young whippersnapper” – eager to make my name and undeterred by the fact that I was getting up the nose of many national politicians who wondered who on earth I thought I was.

Years later, I was to appear many times on Any Questions? when Jonathan Dimbleby hosted the programme for over 30 years. In fact, I appeared on his final programme as chair in Bristol.

All of this brings me to a month ago – on the night before my last column in this newspaper. There I was, with my wife Margaret, appearing on Any Questions? in Glusburn, a small village between Skipton and Keighley and much nearer the Lancashire border than is good for any Yorkshireman!

The problem was that this, as ever, was a Friday night. The programme goes out live and is recorded and replayed on Saturday lunchtime. Friday teatime is a terrible time for anyone to be travelling, not least in trying to circumnavigate the M1 - M62 junction and getting to a point somewhere North and West.

My traumatic few days started the day before when I travelled by rail from London to Sheffield. It turned out to be something akin to a nightmare. The car taking me to St Pancras broke down. My guide dog, Barley, managed extraordinarily well, after so many months without the experience of rail travel, to get me to the right platform.

The train I was on was held up by a preceding train both breaking down and being on fire. You simply couldn’t make it up. On the journey I was informed, over the phone, that the car picking me up from the station had also broken down! I could feel that things weren’t quite going my way.

Sadly, I was right. As we approached the venue for Any Questions?, Margaret succumbed to car sickness – a perennial problem for her. I often think it is brave of her to come with me. Not least for Any Questions? because a previous occasion in Peterborough had led to us having to stop five times on the way back to Sheffield because, once again, car sickness had hit her very badly.

We reached the venue and I did the programme. During the test question used to check sound systems I added to my woes however when I answered the question “What is your favourite pudding?” with ‘tiramisu’ – this was two days before England played Italy in the Euro 2020 final! I was later told that the correct answer was ‘my wife’s damson crumble’.

I enjoyed meeting Philippa Gregory, the author of historical novels. Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, and Robbie Moore, the young Conservative member for Keighley, who had stepped in because Andrea Jenkins had been pinged by the notorious app. It was hosted by Chris Mason, a down-to-earth Yorkshireman in the programme’s finest traditions.

On our return to Sheffield, we were about 20 minutes on the way back when Margaret indicated that she simply couldn’t go any further. She was, to put it mildly, in a very bad way.

The driver was good enough to use his computer to locate a nearby hotel just outside Bradford. Just about within easy reach before she flaked out altogether.

What happened next was really the most bizarre and, in retrospect, entertaining drama.

Our driver, a really decent man in his late 40s, walked into the hotel to guide me and Barley to the desk to book a double room for the night. There we were, two blokes booking a double room without any luggage, and declining the offer of breakfast.

But then the coup de grâce. The driver went out to fetch Margaret, who was still recovering back in the car. Picture the scene as he guided me and supporting her, together the three of us took the lift and went up to the room.

In the morning, he was kind enough to return to pick us up. When refreshed and free from the traumas of the night before, we were able to return to Sheffield.

And the lesson? Always take a toothbrush and toothpaste. Always have, if possible, a change of underwear. And, in my case, always have a spare portion of dog food for whatever the circumstances, and whatever the disruption.

David Blunkett is a Labour peer and a former Home Secretary.

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