IN THE THICK OF IT
Farmers get up at whenever. It’s just what I do.’ Since October 2013, Naughtie has swapped
a couple of his weekly stints at Broadcasting House for Pacific Quay on Glasgow’s Clydeside to become, in the run-up to the independence referendum, one of the voices of Good Morning Scotland. This dual role, he says, makes a lot of sense. Naughtie and his wife, the writer Eleanor Updale, have been part-time Edinburghers since 2010. He was not, repeat not, dispatched north to show the hapless Scots how it should be done. ‘I’m very anxious to avoid the impression
that I was “sent up” to do this,’ he says. This interpretation comes, he claims, from the noisier end of the Nationalist spectrum – the so-called Cybernats, who pounce on slights, real and imagined, and respond with online invective. Naughtie describes them as ‘people with an axe to grind’ and shrugs off their attentions. ‘I had one the other day who said “we know where you are”.’ He’s unconcerned. ‘They’re people who don’t seem to be 16 annas to the rupee.’ There’s a bigger job to do. Namely: ‘To tell
the rest of the UK how the argument goes, to explain the importance of this. Whatever the result, it has implications for the way the UK is organised. A lot of people in London haven’t quite tuned in to the maturity of the argument. They say’ – at this stage Naughtie swaps his regular Turiff gruff for RP – ‘What’s going on? Where did this chap Alex Salmond come from? He’s a very interesting man.’ He laughs at his well-polished response.
‘Well, he has been leader of his party, with one brief interruption, since 1990. He’s not a new kid on the block.’ Dotting between the studios of London,
Glasgow and Edinburgh has not dulled the 62- year-old’s appetite for frontline reporting. ‘Over the last few years Today has let presenters get out on the road more,’ Naughtie says approvingly. ‘It really sharpens you up. I’ve had two or three trips to Egypt, right in the thick of it.’ He warms to his subject. (Brevity, as he is
first to admit, is not his strong suit.) ‘Radio is all about rhythm, cadence, immediacy, making a connection with the person who’s listening. It’s about pulling them in, explaining why they need to listen for the next four minutes. You don’t want to turn it into a piece of crude showmanship but’ – he grins – ‘you’ve got to get them into the tent. Otherwise they won’t see the show.’ Despite having a schedule that would keep
a man half his age busy (Today, Good Morning Scotland, the monthly Radio 4 Book Club, one- off series such as this year’s The New Elizabethans, a monthly interview for BBC Music magazine, presenting the Proms), Naughtie has found
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 35
‘You don’t ever get used to the 3am starts. Sometimes you’re running on adrenaline’
Left: The part-time Edinburgher, photographed below Arthur’s Seat for Scottish Field.
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