My Bonnie: How dementia stole the love of my life. John Suchet

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      ‘My contract in Washington is for four years. By bringing me back early, you have broken my contract.’ ‘Sue us,’ he said, without missing a beat.

      I walked home with tears pricking the back of my eyes. It wasn’t just humiliation, it was total humiliation. I could take so much, I decided, but things had gone too far. I was now a senior television journalist with a wealth of experience. All right, I had fallen down on the Washington job, but I had proved in the preceding years that I was not just a capable reporter, but a pretty good one. Why else had David Nicholas given me the Washington job? And I had had enough. I would resign. Simple. Resign and get another job.

      Bonnie took one look at me as I walked through the door, and said ‘I’ll fix you a drink, you look drained. What on earth has happened?’ I relayed the conversation to her, and said ‘But don’t worry, they’ve humiliated me for the last time. I am resigning. I will hand in the letter tomorrow.’

      Just as I remember word for word how she said That’s all right, we’ll do something else, so I remember word for word what she said then. ‘No you won’t. You’ll go back in and you’ll show them. You’ll work your way up again, and prove them wrong.’

      I could have told her my mind was made up and that was that. But I didn’t. I knew deep down she was right, but my reasoning was different to hers. She believed in me, she knew I had been a good journalist, and she didn’t want to see me throw it away. All I knew was that there was nothing else I was qualified to do.

      Mind you, I came close to carrying out my threat a week or so later. Still stuck on the reporters’ desk, with no story. Neither the home news editor nor foreign news editor would assign me to any story. The only time I ever got on air was when I put my voice on some agency picture that had come in from the other side of the world—floods, a volcano, Korean riots, that sort of thing. I decided to do something about it.

      I knocked on the senior news editor’s door and asked if I could have a word. I should point out that this was a chap who had joined ITN within a few months of me. We were very good friends as well as colleagues, had socialised outside the office and had worked together in Northern Ireland.

      ‘Look,’ I said, trying not to sound too aggressive, ‘I’m getting a bit fed up. No one will give me a story. Not home desk or foreign desk.’

      He shot up from his chair, slammed his hands down on the desk, and said, ‘Listen mate. You are in disgrace. Do you hear that? In disgrace. Now get out of here and go back to the desk. You’ll get a story when you prove you know what to do with it.’

      My jaw dropped. I walked—limped—back to the desk and quickly pulled a newspaper up in front of my face. I really did have tears in my eyes.

      On the news they showed one of the few remaining copies of the Magna Carta, which had sold at auction for zillions. ‘God, look at that writing, how small it is,’ Bon said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘probably written by a…a…’ I couldn’t think of the right word. Clerk? Squire?

      ‘Scribe,’ she said, quick as a flash. I looked at her in utter amazement. She had a satisfied smile on her face.

      A while later it seemed my luck changed. I was sent to Beirut. In the middle of the night I was the only passenger on board a ferry from Limassol in Cyprus to Jounieh, a port just north of Beirut. I stood on deck in the darkness, the salty wind blowing in my face. In the distance was the red glow of a city in the grip of civil war, and I was moving slowly towards it. Most sane and rational people would have been heading as fast as they could in the opposite direction. I cannot pretend I was totally at ease, but a blast of Beethoven’s Eroica into my ears from my battered old Walkman gave me the courage I needed and fired me up. A war zone. A big story. At last, at last.

      From the moment I set foot on Lebanese soil, it was as if the civil war stopped. It seemed I had brought peace to the region. I managed to get just a single report on News at Ten in two weeks, before coming home. Hardly my fault that I had not been given the chance to prove myself, but galling nonetheless.

      It wasn’t long before I was back in the Middle East. The war between Iran and Iraq was at its height, putting at risk the safe passage of oil down the Gulf, out into the Arabian Sea, and on to the Western world. At the southern end of the Gulf lay the narrow Strait of Hormuz. It was vital that this stretch of water be kept open, and that task fell to Oman. It just so happened the Sultan of Oman was a graduate of Sandhurst, a great Anglophile, and more than happy to have British forces on site to patrol the waters.

      ITN dispatched me to cover this British effort for News at Ten. I didn’t know why it seemed as if I was slowly being brought out of the wilderness, what with Beirut and now this, and I didn’t stop to ask. Simple, I hear you say. They were giving you another chance, another opportunity to prove yourself. Television news should work like that, but usually doesn’t. Much more likely that the reporter, or reporters, they wanted to send were unavailable for some reason, and yours truly was not.

      Whatever the reason, I hooked up with a camera crew and went. I was back in my element: a strong picture story unfolding before me, with British forces naturally keen to get as much favourable coverage as they could, therefore being highly co-operative. I got several reports onto News at Ten, and was told on my return they were highly thought of.

      More. On 14th June 1985 a TWA passenger plane was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome. With a primed grenade held to his head, the captain defied Beirut control tower and landed. Over the next three days, the plane made four flights between Beirut and Algiers. It wasn’t long before they began to carry out their threat to kill passengers. I was sent to cover the Algiers end. There I got close to a senior TWA executive, who, when the drama appeared to be approaching its end, flew my camera crew and me in his executive jet to Athens, allowing us to satellite exclusive coverage to London. More praise.

      And then, roll of drums, fanfare, on 7th July 1985 Boris Becker became the youngest-ever player to win the Wimbledon men’s title. ‘He’s flying back to Monte Carlo tomorrow. It’s where he trains. Get on the plane with him,’ the foreign editor said to me. She didn’t need to say it twice, I can tell you.

      Despite a thousand media scrumming, pushing, shoving, bribing, to get on that plane, I made it with my camera crew. In Monte Carlo his manager made it clear that there were to be no interviews. I hung around, and got good pictures of Boris, an interview with his manager, and plenty of colour. I satellited my report for News at Ten. The foreign news editor made a point of telling me my piece was well received, I had made the story mine, and so I would be sent in a fortnight’s time to Becker’s home town of Leimen, near Heidelberg, to cover his triumphant return. I duly went, covered the civic reception, filmed young boys on the tennis courts hoping one day to emulate their hero. Becker himself walked out onto the balcony of the town hall, to cheers from the throng below. Again my report was lauded.

      Wonder of wonders, people in the newsroom were beginning to talk to me again. I was being treated almost normally. The foreign editor, who had chanced her arm by dispatching me to the Middle East, and to cover Becker, even took me aside to say things were going well for me.

      But the rehabilitation was not yet quite as complete as I thought.

      In London we live in a long narrow apartment, with a corridor that runs the length of it, rooms off to the side. Bon walks up and down this corridor, up and down, day after day. Unless I sit in front of the telly, of course, in which case she comes and sits with me. But if I am at the computer, as I am now, up and down, up and down.

      A strange development. Uncanny as it may sound, but if I need to go into the bedroom, to hang something up, say, she is there СКАЧАТЬ