Gary O'Donoghue, journalist

0:00Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:30Thank you.

1:00conducted live as the incident unfolded, won the Royal Television Society Breaking News Award. His interview with an eyewitness, which was rebroadcast by every major news network, was watched by more than 300 million people on social media and nominated for an Emmy. Viewers were impressed by his journalistic skills and by the fact that he was covering an event he could not actually see. Gary is blind. In fact, he's the first disabled person to be posted as a BBC foreign correspondent. During his career, he's reported on mass shootings, filed stories from the Macedonian border during the Kosovo conflict, covered the Iraq War and chronicled seven British general elections.

1:41He was born in London, where his dad worked as a black cab driver. When Gary lost his sight aged eight, support was limited, but his parents were determined that he would succeed. They got him a place at a boarding school for blind children and he went on to study philosophy and modern languages at Oxford. He spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he took his first steps into journalism, filing pieces for Radio 4's In Touch. He says, being blind is absolutely and undeniably a part of who I am, but it's not all of me. Gary O'Donoghue, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you for having me.

2:15Well, Gary, you're a very busy man, so I'm glad that you've got time to see us. You have, let's say, a hectic journalistic beat. We're speaking in April, and I think plenty of listeners at home will be struggling to keep up with American politics right now. How are you finding it? Well, I share their frustration because we struggle, I struggle day to day to keep up. The pace of what is unfolding in the US and around the world is mind boggling and mind blowing. and our job, my job, to try and interpret that and make sense of that and sort of impose some kind of rationality or structure on it is a day-to-day challenge.

2:52It's hugely hard. All the rules in politics have changed in the last few years. The politically impossible has become possible. All sorts of things have been turned on their head and we're all day by day struggling to try and keep up. And the personalities. I mean, we have such an unpredictable president right now. We do. And he has rewritten the rules of politics. He has the ability to, you know, shock day by day and does so. And because he's the most powerful man in the world, we have to report that. And that upsets a lot of people. But he is the most powerful man in the world. He has been elected.

3:33So we have to sort of respect that mandate, even if it's hard at times to understand. what he's trying to, you know, achieve. And I'm one of those people that believes that if you don't know, if you're not sure, then say so. You know, I've been on air and said, I don't know, I'm not sure, I don't really understand this. And I think audiences do appreciate that. What I'm trying to do the whole time when I'm broadcasting or writing, you know, I'm trying to give them not just an analysis or the news or whatever, I'm trying to give them a bit of me, because that's how you get them to trust you. They feel they know you.

4:09You talk about journalism as a very good fit for blind people. Tell me a bit more about that. Why? One of the things you have to do as someone who can't see, who's blind, is right from a very early age, actually, you have to learn to listen. You sort of have to learn to understand other people's reactions because they react differently to you as a disabled person. And you learn to put yourself inside their head a bit and know when that sort of thing is going on. And so I think that means you're outside yourself, you know, quite a lot of the time. And there's also, you know, in maybe slightly more stressful circumstances when people might not necessarily want you around, it can be harder to, you know, shut the door in the face of a blind bloke who's a reporter.

4:57So if you're doorstepping someone, you're at an advantage. Maybe. Now, it's not just journalism that we're talking about today, Gary. You're, of course, sharing your music with us. Tell us about your first disc today. Well, I'm pretty sure this was the first single I ever bought. But I think when I started listening to music or becoming aware of it at 6, 7, 8, I didn't really like what was around very much. I kind of hated disco. Although, ironically, there is a disco track in one of the ones I've suggested. It's a broad mix today, Gary. I've had a sneak peek. There are reasons. But suddenly there was this kind of new music around, well, punk basically, and new wave.

5:37And this came along and I bought the single and I remember taking it to school and forcing one of the teachers to play it in the classroom. Was it your French teacher? It was my French teacher and I asked her to translate it but she refused to. I didn't know whether she could or couldn't or wouldn't but she wouldn't translate it. Anyway, so this has a sort of very special sort of place in my memory. It's Sa Plane Pour Moi by Plastic Bertrand.

6:07a girl de bois a pu ma pierre dans un grand verre en caoutchouc comme un alien dans son igloo ça plane pour moi ça plane pour moi ça plane pour moi moi moi moi moi ça plane pour moi ça plane pour moi plastic Bertrand Gary O'Donoghue you were born in North London in 1968 and you grew up in Hornchurch in Essex. And your parents, Connie and Frank, both had big passions outside family life. Let's talk about your mum first. Before she got married, she taught ballroom dancing, didn't she? She did. My mum and dad both left school at 14 and my mother went to a dancing school, ballroom dancing school, and did loads of all her qualifications and was completely qualified by, I think, the age of 21 and used to sort of effectively, when the owners were away, run this quite well-known Borham dancing school in North London called Morgans.

7:09And that's where she met my father because he was one of her pupils. And in fact, that's where one of her sisters also met her husband. Very successful, isn't he? It's a bit better than speed dating. So what did she tell you about meeting your dad then? What kind of impression did he make? He must have been a good dancer too. To be honest, she was always quite critical of his dancing. I remember her telling me there was a sort of policeman and she slightly fancied a bit more than him. But they ended up together. I think he had an incredible sense of humour, my father, and he was always larking around and I think that captured her heart eventually.

7:46And what about your dad? He had been a semi-pro footballer. In his early, yeah, in his sort of teenage years, he was a pretty accomplished footballer and played for various teams around the South East, I think into his 20s. What kind of teams? Who did he play for? Well, he had some trials at some quite big teams like Watford and Chelsea and places like that, but he ended up playing in like a non-league kind of Eastbourne and I think Hastings and Whitstable and places like that. He was a midfielder and his great talent was that he could kick equally well with both feet, which many Premier League footballers nowadays can't do.

8:23Oh, wow. And do you think he could have gone all the way in different circumstances? Who knows? And he never showed any resentment or anything. And eventually he became a cab driver. But he did used to take me to Tottenham from when I was very little, mainly because a lot of his mates, who were also cab drivers, were tickets out at Spurs at the weekend. And so we could get tickets pretty easily and then keep some back for us. But the first game he took me to the old White Hart Lane was against the Arsenal and we got walloped 5-0. But he knew the assistant manager, who'd happened to be a, was also a former cab driver who got us down to the dressing room afterwards.

9:04I mean, I think I was probably seven or eight at the time. Maybe a little older, but I got to meet some of the players and stuff like that, which was, it was lovely. One of them patting, I remember distinctly one of them patting me on the head and saying, sorry, we lost for your son. I mean, your mum and dad sound wonderful. Tell me about their personalities. What kind of people were they? They were very tolerant. They were hardworking. My dad worked nights most of the time. My mum, when she sort of gave up dancing and had a family, then sort of spent a lot of time working in bars and shops and things like that.

9:40And they were incredibly patient. They were great parents. So when your dad was training to become a cabbie, he would have done the knowledge. Do you remember that? Was that before your time? That was before I was born. Although, funnily enough, when I was growing up, he would sort of offload some of this knowledge to me so when we were driving around in London going to see my grandparents or whatever he would tell me where we were and which road led to which road and then he would ask me, test me how would you go from this place to this place and so I have this sort of, still to this day I have this knowledge that runs from sort of Camden in the north to the river in the south and then kind of the city in the east probably as far as Notting Hill in the west, where I kind of pretty much know where things are.

10:29So you have this mental map of London. A bit of a mental map to have passed on. All right, Gary, let's have some more music. This is your second choice today. Tell me about this disc. So, I mean, I was born in North London, but, you know, I grew up in Essex, you know, until I was sent away to school. And quite early on, I think through my elder brother, Stephen, I started listening to Ian Jury, who's sort of quintessential Essex. wrote a song called Billerickie Dickie and I remember on the day of the Royal Wedding in 1981 Princess Diane, Prince Charles the GLC, London Council was putting on this alternative event where Ian Drury was headlining and I begged my parents to go and they wouldn't let me and made me sit at home and watch the Royal Wedding instead but the song I've actually chosen from him is a sort of gentler what I regard as sort of a bit of a poking fun at Essex and the kind of ways of Essex, and it's Clever Trevor.

11:28You ain't got no call not to think of what I'm fooling To thinking I ain't too clever

11:38And it ain't not having one thing, no, not another I've a neither is it anything, whatever

11:49And it's not, not knowing that there ain't nothing showing in the eyes of the name of Trevor However Clever Trevor, Ian Dury. So, Gary O'Donoghue, tell me a bit more about growing up and specifically your sight, because you had problems from birth, didn't you? What was the condition that you had called? No-one knows. I think there was some sort of speculation that maybe my mother had had German measles or something when she was pregnant, but no one really knows. And one of my eyes, they took one of my eyes out when I was a baby. I spent quite a lot of time in hospital when I was a baby, which, you know, huge burden for my parents.

12:27But I could see a bit, you know, I was sort of partially sighted, and so I could see out of one eye and I could see enough to ride a bike. But it was pretty unstable, and when I was five, I fell off my bike and detached the retina and had to have that fixed. and then when I was in fact it was the day before my 8th birthday I have a very clear memory of I was at a school for the partially sighted day school and I remember walking out into the playground after lunch I think I was the first one out there and I climbed the climbing frame and I couldn't see the way down and I thought okay there's something, something's wrong here and they'd bought me this I'll never forget they'd bought me this sort of action man doll right, ironically enough the six million dollar man with his bionic eye right and i'm in the kitchen trying to stare through this little hole in the back of this doll's head trying to persuade my parents i really can see something still um but i went to the hospital and i was there for another few weeks and eventually the the consultant i'd had from birth famous ophthalmologist called um greaves he sat my mother down and said look it's over he's not going to be able to see ever again and

13:40he gave he said straight away after that he said he's not going to see again and the thing you must do right now is make sure he gets the best education he can possibly get and that's exactly what your mum and dad did that must have been so difficult to have that conversation with your consultant from their perspective and you said it was just your mum at first I think there was no support in those days at all My mother told me that at one point when they'd made an artificial eye for me, the nurse couldn't manage to put it in, so she wrapped it in a tissue and said, you try when you get home. Which could be a good job.

14:18Yeah, off you go. Off you go, here it is. And later in life, my mother actually said to me, there was a point in those early years where she considered killing us both. Oh, my God. But I was so touched, actually, that she'd told me that. the courage to tell me that and trusted me enough to tell me that because I kind of I got it you know I can understand it made me understand how lonely it must have been for her and my father and the sense of desperation that that she would have had as you say with with no support around it and really unsure what the future held you know all of that I think I sort of understood that that they were worried for me and I think you know I was obviously I must have been a bit anxious because I remember trying to run away from home a couple of times.

15:05Where did you go? I told my mum I was going to her mother's, my nan's. Where did she live? She lived up in Kentish Town. And I would apparently pack a bag that contained only three things, which was a pair of underpants, a toothbrush and a toy car. That was a lot. And my mother would actually, she'd actually let me go. She'd let me walk up the street and follow me. and when I lost my bottle before the top of the street she'd be there. Let's take a minute for some music. What are we going to hear? The best friend I ever had was a guy called Tim, Tim Goebbels and we first met when I was sent away to school at eight and we went through two schools together, we went through university together and in our adult life we talked all the time, and we met up all the time.

15:59He knew me better than anyone. He was blind too, was he? He was blind too, and we talked about everything, and he was loyal and honest. And then he died nine years ago, and he got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and three months later he was dead. And not a day goes by that I miss him. And I don't have him to talk to anymore. And this is a track that you've chosen for him in his memory. Yes, this is for him. We were at the same university in different colleges and he was a big fan of this band. And when I went round to sat in his room and drank the Queen's College sherry, which was actually quite nice, he'd play this and we would agonise about all the girls we weren't getting.

16:57We were sitting, I remember us sitting and helping one write love letters to the latest crush and things like that. And out of his speakers was the Pet Shop Boys, and so I've chosen West End Girls.

17:26In a western town, a dead-end world The East End Boys and West End Girls West End Girls

17:41Perchop Boys and West End Girls Gary O'Donoghue, after you lost your sight your parents sent you to a boarding school for blind and partially sighted children in Kent What do you remember about that time? I remember the day we went and they took me on a Sunday and I remember on all, you know, the whole journey telling them I wasn't going to do it and they might as well turn around now. I think I felt slightly like I was being punished for losing my sight a bit. I mean, that's obviously not what they were doing. And they were just silent in the front of the car because I knew this was, well, I know now, this must have been tearing them apart as well.

18:17Oh, God. You know, and I went and this is this sort of big old form a manor house in the middle of these sort of huge grounds and the way up to the the dormitories was the the old servant staircase up 52 stone steps how old were you at this point so i was eight so this is six months after i'd lost so it was only six months after because that's not long is it not long for them not long for you no not long at all and they um you know my mother said that you know she could hear me bawling my eyes out she walked down the stairs and that must be hugely hard for them. I mean, hugely hard. And so you were desperate, you were homesick, were you?

18:54I was really, well, I think I was homesick. I think I adapted pretty quickly. I mean, it was a huge change. I mean, it was a working class background I'd come from and these schools of blind children in those days were, you know, they were modelled on the English public school system. So culturally, just like a complete culture shock as well. Complete culture shock. Tell me about that. What kind of thing? How would you describe it? Sort of things like the stories they would read us were all kind of you know jenny's goes to school and we had houses that we were in you know and it was quite regimented and i mean there was still corporal punishment you know i got hit at one point and in those days the sort of pastoral care in those sorts of schools was very much secondary to the academic stuff but there were good things about those early years as well.

19:44I mean, you know, I learned to ski at that school, you know, my parents scraped the money together to allow me on a skiing trip to Austria. And, you know, that was completely out of the realms of anything. Right. So what was that like then? Because as well, you were a weekly boarder. So you're going home at the weekends, like talking about skiing and speaking French, which you ended up being very good at. I mean, how was all of that? How did that affect the family dynamics? You sort of become a different person and you grow apart a bit. I mean, from 11 years old onwards. And was that when you went to Worcester College?

20:17That was when I went to the hothouse of Worcester College, which was a massive grammar school for blind boys. It was two lives, really. I'd come back at the weekend. OK, so they call that code switching now, I think. Is that what it is? Yeah. So you were sort of one person at school and then... Of course, my accent changed. I went from the kind of Essex estuary to this place where everyone who'd come from different parts of the country, and we all sounded the same at the end of the first year. Yeah. So did your relationship with Stephen and Andrew, your brothers, change? I think so. I mean, I think, you know, they probably suffered quite a lot from the amount of time my parents had to spend looking after me when I was having all my sight problems and spending loads of time in hospital.

21:02and certainly when I went to school I really didn't see them very much and so we've obviously stayed together and we still talk, you know, but I don't think I've I don't feel like I've ever really known them And have you had that conversation about what they went through? Because it is very hard on the other siblings when one child and a family has health problems, they obviously become the focus, but it's difficult for the siblings for sure It is and we haven't had that conversation maybe we should And in terms of the new world that was opening up to you, I mean, you did well academically. You also learned some very important life skills.

21:38It wasn't just skiing. What were the kind of things were you learning? Oh, I mean, I do remember that they took a group of us over to a disused airfield a little few miles away and taught us how to drive. Wow. And it was great. And they said, of course, you'll never drive, but you should know what it's like. And so, what, I was 14, there's five of us in this dual-controlled car with one teacher. And there's four blind kids in the back saying, oh, faster, faster, faster. And we're driving around this old airfield and it was so exciting. All right, Gary, it's time to go to the music. Disc number four, if you would.

22:17So my dad took me down to Denmark Street here in London, Tin Pan Alley, they used to call it. and he bought me a Fender Strat copy in Sunburst, and me and three other guys, when we were about 15, started this band, and we used to go and play the pubs around Worcester and in the West Midlands and Birmingham, and we'd get paid in beer by these pubs. We were underage, all of us were underage. I mean, you wouldn't get away with it now, but they would pay us in beer. It was enormous fun. Fantastic. I can't tell you how much fun. What were you called? What was the band called? We were called, for some random reason, Shogun.

22:56We had nothing to do with Japan. I think it was on the telly at the time. I love the ambition of the name, though. That's impressive. We would sit up all night trying to make up names for the band and just collapse into hysterics for hours on end, finally rejecting Iron Fist for Shogun. Well, they're both good. They're both very, very strong. So in the band, we used to do a lot of cover versions and from that sort of era I got introduced to ZZ Top. So this song is from a live album they did and it's just a fantastic kind of lazy but energetic blues song and I just love the title and it's Jesus Just Left Chicago.

23:41Jesus still left Chicago And he's bound to move all the way

23:55Well, my beautiful left Chicago And it's bound for the early

24:08ZZ Top and Jesus Just Left Chicago So, Gary O'Donoghue, you read Philosophy in Modern Languages at Oxford University. your parents as you mentioned left school at 14 what did it mean to you and your parents that you got a place there my parents were beside themselves i mean they they weren't very expressive but they were chuffed beyond belief and they had no idea you know what was involved i don't think and the first day we we went up my dad said to me do you mind if we is it all right if we turn up in a van. I said, that is fine. Van is fine. And those Braille books won't fit in anything. Yeah, exactly.

24:50So he was sort of unsure, but also completely delighted. So they didn't know what was in store for you. I mean, what about you? How did you find life at Oxford after being at school that was specifically entirely for blind students? It was a bit of a shock. I mean, I was made to feel very welcome, absolutely. And there was a sort of quiet support that I got from my college which was Christchurch you know I remember in the very early days saying to someone just randomly the braille books are a different size to ordinary books they don't fit on the shelf in my room and like two days later there's a sort of knock on the door and the college carpenter is there saying we've come to build some shelves for you to fit the books so they would do like quiet simple things like that and made it very clear that if I needed anything I was to talk to them but it was it was a shock in the sense that you know I kind of thought of myself as completely well obviously I knew I couldn't see but I thought myself as normal I thought well the world's just going to be fine why would the world be strange and these are all clever people why would they be strange and some of them were were lovely and some of them were strange and didn't really know how to relate or talk to you and I do remember you know overhearing a conversation at dinner one night a few seats down with someone say oh yeah i went to knock on his door but the lights were out so i wasn't sure whether he was in or not and i remember thinking god you know you do need to turn the lights on but otherwise people are not going to know you're in your room um so it was you know as i say there were lots of people who were lovely um but it took some and some never you know some people never get used to it i mean i remember in the first term going to the university's counseling service and talking to someone there and they sort of I'd explain what sort of feeling not really understanding it and this woman gave me this book I never forget it was a book called stigma by a psychologist called Irving Goffman it was an anatomy of difference and how difference and is dealt with by the world and how people react and all different not just blindness but all different contexts of difference I remember thinking at the time someone's thought about this before.