John Sergeant, the former political editor of ITN, has begun a new chapter
since he electrified the nation this time last year. “With a bulgy tum,
thinning hair and the face of a grumpy little troll, John Sergeant has
everything it takes not to be a sex symbol. Yet, at the age of 64,
that is exactly what he’s become to thousands of adoring women who watch him
strut his unprepossessing stuff on the Beeb’s Strictly Come Dancing,”
one article on him began.
Proving that there are second acts, at least, in English lives, two years into
his retirement the 65-year-old has not only won legions of admirers with his
two left feet (despite never watching Strictly Come Dancing), he has
also chaired a comedy panel show, Argumental, for the Dave channel,
filed reports for The One Show (and stood in to present it with
Myleene Klass), played a journalist on Casualty, and filmed a
three-part ITV documentary about Britain from the point of view of the 32
million tourists who visit every year.
I find him in an armchair at the Gray’s Inn Road HQ of ITV, in Central London,
drinking a hefty glass of red wine (it’s lunchtime) with the cress-strewn
remains of a sandwich in front of him. He is eager, grave and gleeful by
turns, and he is clearly having the time of his life.
“I had no idea how much tourists know about England,” he remarks. “They know
about Peter Rabbit and Miss Marple and Robin Hood and Henry VIII — we are a
theme park for them. Our main cultural references are world cultural
references. They put us to shame because they’re so nice and so polite and
behave so well.”
For the series he travelled around the UK, visiting Loch Ness, crushing a
group of engaging Americans at croquet in Surrey, admiring Changing the
Guard in London and burning rubber with German bikers for the Tourist Trophy
on the Isle of Man. The series is a reminder of the beauty and history of
Britain. But for Sergeant it is also a celebration of our political prowess.
“The tourists have a sense of, ‘How on earth did these people run the world?’”
he observes. “But there is also, I think, a tremendous realisation that one
of the things we do well is politics. Last year there was a real economic
crisis, one of the worst times of our lives, and the thing that didn’t come
up for half a second was, ‘Is this a political crisis? Are the military
going to take over? Will tanks be out?’ That’s our genius, the sense that
(a) we can work it out and (b) this is not a political crisis. That’s pretty
rare.”
And the crucial question: who is going to win the next election? Can Labour
get it only if they replace Gordon Brown? Sergeant shakes his head. “The
public would say they’re a busted flush and they’re desperate. The only
thing they can hold on to, where I think the Conservatives have made a big
mistake, is that this is not the moment to cut spending. We’ve been through
one hell of a crisis. You’ve got to be very careful of saying, ‘We’re
Tories, we love to cut’, because the person who feels the cut won’t be [the
Tory leader David] Cameron, and it won’t be [the Shadow Chancellor George]
Osborne, with all their money. This ‘We’re going to be cutters, we’re going
to be tough’ — oh, fatal.”
But it played well in the papers. “Oh, I know.” He sighs. “And they think it
plays well in the opinion polls. But they’ve got to be very careful. When
the economy rights itself, and the revenues pile in, then you can do all
sorts of things. But Cameron and Osborne going round saying, ‘We’re all in
this together’ — no, they’re not, they’re bloody toffs! They need a [Peter]
Mandelson, they need an Alastair Campbell who will read the riot act to them
in private.”
Sergeant’s passion for the chicanery of politics, in pursuit of which he was
handbagged by Margaret Thatcher outside the British Embassy in Paris in 1990
(in fact it was Sir Bernard Ingham who bundled him out of the way), has not
faded in retirement, though you get the impression he is not sorry that he
no longer has to perch in the buffeting rain outside No 10 to deliver
reports.
“To give her her due, she kept her handbag to herself,” he observes with
affection of the Iron Lady. “We got on really rather well. She had no sense
of humour, which made her rather funny. And I loved that she was so
feminine. People think she was a harridan, shouting and screaming. No, she’d
dress up, she’d want the men to look at her as she walked across the room.
There was no nonsense, it was a man meeting a woman. ‘I’m Margaret Thatcher
and I’m in high heels, I’m dressed up and you’re going to be excited by me
because I’m powerful’.”
These days he is home more often in Ealing, which is good news for his
longsuffering wife, Mary. Their two boys, Will and Mike, have long since
grown up and followed their dad into telly. “People like me, my life’s too
dangerous not to have a very strong home base,” he muses. “I’ve got to go
home and somebody’s got to be really keen on me.”
He gives a soft smile. “She’s better than me. She’s nicer than me. She puts up
with my career.” Did she watch him in Strictly? “I think she
saw a few. She wants me to be, she thinks of me as, a clever person, and why
can’t I demonstrate my cleverness? I think I do, but I don’t make it too
obvious.” He doesn’t tango with her when they go out, then? He looks
astonished. “No!”
Brought up in Great Tew, Oxfordshire, the youngest of three, Sergeant had a
missionary father, Copeland, and an adoring mother, Olive. He always knew
that he would go places. “I’m the little prince who everybody adored,” he
says. “I was endlessly spoilt because I passed exams, and people wanted to
see me playing around, which they still do. I think I knew I was going to be
somebody as a little kid. Lots of people were telling me. I think I’d have
been disappointed if I hadn’t been. My mother made it clear to me that I
wasn’t ordinary and she expected a lot of me.”
At 13 he went to Millfield, after his father took a job there as a teacher,
and found himself being taught English by the playwright Robert Bolt, who
wrote A Man for All Seasons. He went on to Magdalen, Oxford, where he
read PPE, and after graduation, in 1966, starred with Alan Bennett in a
sketch show called On the Margin.
From the Liverpool Echo Sergeant went to the BBC foreign desk, where
his CV reads like a tour round the historical milestones of the past four
decades. He was in Ireland during the Troubles, was in Vietnam in 1972 when
the nine-year-old Kim Phúc was photographed running naked down a road burnt
by napalm (the image would become a poignant symbol of the war), drove
across America to San Francisco in time to hear Martin Luther King make his
“I have a dream” speech and, along with the rest of Britain, was gobsmacked
to discover that Edwina Curry had been having an affair with John Major.
“Like Forrest Gump, I know,” he sighs.
“This is me having fun,” he says of this latest, unfolding chapter of his
career. “It’s also people getting to see what I’m like, if they’re
interested in me. What’s nice, as we went round the country, what was very
affecting, was that people always wanted to know, ‘Am I OK?’ There was a
sense of protective feelings, and I didn’t expect this. It doesn’t happen
when you’re a junior reporter — you’re fighting for every bit. So it was,
‘You’re being looked after? They’re not working you too hard?’ When I was
outside Downing Street, little old ladies would want to knit me things.” He
grins with sheer delight. “My career is just starting — it’s just getting
good.”
And he has become a combination of sex symbol and national treasure. He
chuckles. “That is pretty improbable. What you’re trying to do, if you’re
given a chance to do these kinds of shows, everything’s got to ring true. In
this programme I hope there’s not a false note, even the bits where we’re
being lyrical. That’s all I’m trying to do. Obviously the more sophisticated
will be able to analyse it more accurately. My best moments in political
reporting were when I’d analyse something in the road outside No 10 and
the next day you’d hear someone say, ‘Well, it’s obvious what it means is
this’, and they wouldn’t add, ‘because John Sergeant says so’.”
And his sons following in his footsteps? He grins. “They work out, little
buggers, whether you’re happy. They know. So when it comes to the point of
their careers and what they should do, they want to swim up the same river.”
He shakes his head. “Lucky buggers,” he says.
John Sergeant's perfect weekend
TV or radio? That’s horrible, isn’t it? I suppose I have to say TV.
They’ll be so upset.
Michelin-starred restaurant or pub grub? Michelin-starred, that’s easy.
River Café, I suppose.
Town or country? I have to admit it’s town.
Three-step cleansing or soap and water? I think water, probably. Forget
about soap!
Sky Sports or gym? Neither of those work, do they? I wouldn’t do gym, I
wouldn’t do Sky Sports, unless there was a really good game.
Book or DVD? Book. I'm reading The Defence of the Realm: The
Authorized History of MI5, because I know the author.
Marcus Brigstocke or Rufus Hound? Oh, that’s not fair. I love them both.
High street or high-end fashion? High street.
Brown or Cameron? Oh God. I can’t decide that one either. Brown because
I know him — I don’t know Cameron. I was Father Christmas for Brown at No 11.
Strictly or X Factor? It’s got to be Strictly.
I couldn’t get through the weekend without . . . Wine, I suppose.
John Sergeant on the Tourist Trail will be broadcast on ITV1 at 8pm
on Tuesdays from November 10
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