The Times Magazine - 28 May 2022

78 Pages·2022·26 MB·English

MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR
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LONDON V WOLVO
Sathnam Sanghera
on levelling up
INSIDE ZELENSKY’S
HOME TOWN
The city that made
the president
How
Bake Off
cost me my
marriage
Paul Hollywood on the
downsides of fame

28.05.22
20 52
5 Caitlin Moran What grief has taught me. 6 What I’ve learnt Please don’t call me a silver fox, says Huw Edwards. 9 Spinal column:
Melanie Reid A DIY haircut. 10 How to level up Sathnam Sanghera on what the government needs to do – starting in his home town
of Wolverhampton. 20 The making of Zelensky Inside the city where Ukraine’s president was born. 28 Cover story Paul Hollywood The
star baker on the toll fame has taken on his private life. 35 Eat! Recipes from Paul Hollywood’s new book. 46 Borgen is back What
can we expect as the Danish political drama returns? Actress Sidse Babett Knudsen tells all. 52 The fabulous fashionista Meet Libbie
Mugrabi, multimillion-dollar divorcée and arts world benefactor. 61 Shop! Best buys under £100. 62 Home! A hilltop house with stunning
views of Puglia. 68 Giles Coren reviews Apricity, London W1. 74 Beta male: Robert Crampton I get jealous. So why doesn’t my wife?
FAB FIVE: LIFEsIzE quEEn cutouts (5ft 3in)
KY/
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The Times Magazine 3

CAITLIN MORAN
This is what grief has taught me
GA middle of the night phone call that turned my life upside down
rief, as we know, affects us specific occasion, “Piss Up”. The northwest
in odd ways. corner, meanwhile, seems to have been claimed
There’s been a death in by Finsbury’s South American community
the family – my father-in- – they bring accordions and panpipes and play
law, he was 84, it was songs from the home country that make the
sudden, but not unlikely older men, after a few beers, cry. One hundred
– and the 1am phone call yards from Little Buenos Aires is the baseball
meant we entered The pitch: expat North Americans shouting, “Nice
World That Arrives When one, buddy!” and sounding – like all Americans
Someone Has Gone. Work cancelled, bags do in Britain – like they’re in a movie.
packed. Returned, raw, to the home town. The trees near the boating lake host the
Doorbell always ringing; crying visitors on Naughty Corner – there’s always a strong
the sofa; so many cups of tea the kitchen smell of marijuana, which floats all the way
resembles backstage in a cafe. Picking a coffin, across to where the new mums are doing
visiting a burial plot (“Ooooh, it’s got good their workout, complete with buggies, under
parking. Nice. He would have wanted that”). the eye of the BMF instructor. Often, the
The ordering of flowers and sandwiches BMF instructor has to bow to necessity and
– fretting over egg and cress, and ham, in hold a fat, pooey baby while its mum finishes
the same half-hour you pick out the clothes her squats; sometimes having to whisper,
someone will be buried in. “DROP AND GIVE ME 20,” if the baby
It’s a proper emotional rollercoaster in has fallen asleep.
which you forget what day it is, and become The bleak, open field is fringed with benches
so quietly sad and mad that you find yourself, and this is where the alcoholics and junkies
two weeks in, suddenly bursting into tears and sit. I fondly think that Finsbury Park’s junkies
saying – in a sentence that surprises even you, – my junkies – are a cut above the rest, as they
as you say it – “This is all too much. I wish very neatly lay out all their “works” on the
I could go for a walk – just for half an hour! bench, as if Delia Smith were giving a cookery
– around Finsbury Park.” demonstration, before getting high. Beyond is
Finsbury Park? No one cries about or longs a community centre, with a kitchen garden
for Finsbury Park. Of all London’s parks, it’s and seemingly perpetual bongo workshop.
the least glamorous. One hundred and ten At night, the homeless eastern Europeans
acres in north London, wedged between who’ve pitched tents by the park gates climb
Finsbury Park and Manor House Tube over the fence and just sit, quietly – maybe
stations. Some corners of it are quite dodgy remembering their own gardens, far away.
– there was a murder a few years ago – and Finsbury Park’s always got something going
its rat population epitomises “cheerfully on: giggling girls practising a Rollerblade dance
thriving urban wildlife”. routine; a man leaning against a tree, playing
And yet, this week, I learnt, when reaching the saxophone; another man walking around
for my mental “happy place”, this… appears exposing himself. Orthodox Jews, in huge
to be it. Over, say, Antigua – or even my fur hats, rowing across the boating lake;
own house. Why? Half of it must just be the competitors on the Tough Mudder obstacle
sweetness of familiarity – it’s our nearest park, course, trying to get up the impossibly steep,
It’s too much, fretting
and since getting the dog, I’ve walked around 20ft-high Hero Wall, while the youths from
it pretty much every day for five years. I like the Naughty Corner shout out unexpectedly
over ham sandwiches
to time it for 5pm, so I can listen to Evan useful advice (“Run at it! Engage your lats!”).
Davis on PM and catch up with world events Teenagers kissing in the long grass;
in the same half-hour
while the dog attends its similarly serious exhausted parents watching toddlers in the
admin of monitoring rival dogs’ urine output. paddling pool – and me, in the middle of it,
you pick out the
I think I love it because it’s so… useful? rejoicing at how this square of green provides
It belongs to everyone, and everyone sees a million different, all perfect, answers to
clothes someone
something different in it. On the north side, the perpetual, fundamental human question
in summer, extended families and friends set of, “What shall I do with this hour? This
will be buried in
ON up £20 Argos marquees and spend the day morning? This me?”
S
WIL barbecueing: alphabet balloons tied to trees I know now why I long for it. It’s life, isn’t
RT telling you if the occasion is a “21st Birthday”, it? Millions of lives, buzzing on.
BE
RO “Ruby Anniversary” or, on one pleasingly Even though one has gone. n
The Times Magazine 5
What I’ve learnt
Huw Edwards
news anchor Huw Edwards, 60, grew up in Wales. since joining the when it hit me, because I hadn’t properly thought about it.
BBc as a trainee in 1984, he has presented the channel’s election I wasn’t processing it.
night coverage, the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Nobody wants to take a pay cut, and I was bloody angry about it.
and BBc news at ten. After the gender pay gap scandal at the BBc I was being paid what the BBC had agreed to pay me; it
in 2018, he took a voluntary pay cut. He will be presenting trooping wasn’t my fault. When a senior manager, a middle-aged
the colour next week for the queen’s Platinum Jubilee. He is white male, called me in to ask me to take a pay cut, the first
married with five children and lives in south London. thing I asked was, “Are you taking one?” He looked horrified
at the very idea. But I thought, do I want my girls being paid
If I had an official fan club, my mum would be president, chairman less than some bloke for doing the same job? Of course
and secretary. My sister made the point that it was utterly I don’t. So, ultimately, it was the right thing to go along
ridiculous for her to record several [of my] bulletins in one with it. I couldn’t stay in the newsroom, look female
day, if I was saying the same thing on each of them, but my colleagues in the eye and be someone who had refused
mum doesn’t buy that at all. When I leave the building at to acknowledge there had been an injustice.
10.45pm, she’ll be in bed, but she’ll give me a verdict on the The boxing gym has been important for me physically and
[News at Ten] programme, which can be encouraging or mentally. I’m somebody who spent a lot of money in gyms,
rather depressing – things like, “You’re not sleeping well. You buying a bike or very good running shoes, which I then
looked tired. You’ve got big bags under your eyes.” never used. Boxing was different, much more down to
I was afraid of speaking about my depression. I didn’t know earth. All I needed was a pair of gloves, an old T-shirt and
what people’s response would be, whether they would shorts. Partly because the boxing gym was shut, I put on
consider me to be some flawed personality at the heart of a stone during lockdown. I did start to run, just to try to
this big news machine. One of the most touching things keep some weight off, but I hated it. Running is just an
has been the dozens of colleagues who have approached appalling activity.
me to say, “I’ve never been able to open up about it, but I’ve My BBC instructor told me, “You’ll need to get rid of that accent.”
actually suffered very badly from depression or anxiety.” He wasn’t being unkind; he thought he was being helpful.
I feel much better for having spoken about it, but I don’t When I arrived in 1984 in Broadcasting House for the
want to be known just for that. news trainee scheme, I felt like a total impostor. I was
When I was three stone overweight, I didn’t feel good about the only non-English person on the course, and I felt a bit
myself. It has a terrible impact on your mental outlook. intimidated by the whole thing.
I felt unfit; I didn’t like the way I looked. It’s a different kind I cringed at being called a “silver fox”. Thankfully it’s calmed
of depression, where you cannot put a finger on why you’ve down a bit. I will often get young women coming up to me
descended into a dark place. and saying, “Do you mind if I have a selfie?” Smiling broadly,
I didn’t confront my dad’s death until ten years later. It’s quite I’ll say, “Of course.” They then say, without missing a beat,
easy to distract yourself – the kids were quite young at the “My grandmother is a huge fan of yours.” I just think, well,
time; you immerse yourself in work, a busy family life. It’s I am 60. It does keep your feet on the ground. n
not until you have a little time to think and you’re slightly
more aware of your own mortality that you then realise
Huw Edwards will present Platinum Jubilee: Trooping the Colour
what’s happened and can feel the loss. It was quite a blow on BBC1 at 10.30am on June 2
INTERVIEW Georgina Roberts PORTRAIT Robert Wilson
6 The Times Magazine
‘Nobody wants to
take a pay cut,
and I was bloody
angry about it’

SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
‘It’s two years since
I had a haircut
and I look like
Ozzy Osbourne.
Pass me the scissors’
N
obody knows what I’m understanding staff – a rare combination. After The problem grew out of all proportion
about to do, I thought, several years, I’d got it sorted: found a place until it became this huge thing oppressing me.
looking at myself in the that worked, with a terrific stylist. Literally and mentally. I’ve been miserable. My
mirror. Nobody can stop But two things happened. First came hair was shapeless and another three inches
me. I’m going to do this lockdown, during which time my hair grew longer, the curls at the neck bedded into a mat
on my terms. It’s my many inches, darker and frumpy. Then six you’d insulate your loft with. Wearing it loose,
body, my hair, my home, months ago I changed my car for the van, I looked like Ozzy Osbourne. Tied back,
and I’m a free woman which I drive from my power chair. This has instead of making me elegant, as my mother
answerable to no one. big implications for haircuts. was, it turned me into an inhabitant of
And besides, I’m desperate. In my hairdresser’s part of town there’s a Victorian workhouse, inducing a crisis
And so I wedged the scissors where I could nowhere to park a van so that the rear door, of self-loathing. Long ago I gave up on
trust them most – right thumb and knuckle with the lift, is unobstructed. If I were blocked appearances, yet some deep part still aches.
of my middle finger – tilted my head, reached in, someone would have to uncouple the The tipping point came after the hair got
round behind my neck so I could feel the steel passenger seat, slot it behind the steering so heavy, pulling at the roots, that I woke up
resting at the hairline, and started hacking. wheel and move the van. Only Doug can in the night with an intense scalp headache.
Cut it from under, like clipping a sheep, do that. Besides, going to the hairdresser That’s when I cracked. I vowed to get up, lock
I told myself. Chopping, reckless, eager: layers is supposed to be relaxing. Worrying about myself away and attack it myself. And if it
of curls peeling off to the sweet, sweet snip not getting back in my vehicle would be as seems tantamount to an act of self-harm, well,
of the blades. For I while I didn’t seem to be relaxing as tooth extraction. it probably was, but I was at breaking point.
getting anywhere. Can anyone possibly have Sometimes you can think yourself to a So I cut it, high and slanted up the back
this much hair? standstill. Maybe I could train up a practical where the curls are, chin length at the front,
It was a genuinely exhilarating moment. friend to move the passenger seat, but it’s and restored a bit of fringe. Liberated enough
Perhaps you will only understand if you’ve tricky. Then I’d need a ramp for the step into curls to fill the hand basin. Curls are forgiving,
been in a wheelchair for a long time, because the salon – you can’t manhandle power chairs I told myself. I contorted my wretched torso,
it’s a life sentence of a kind. Mostly I have – and could I fit beside the washbasins? I welcomed my newly minted hand strength on
accepted my dependency, but sometimes my turned over all the permutations in my head the scissors and did a not too disastrous job,
frustration at my lack of physical agency, the and every day came to the same conclusion: leaving me feeling ten years younger and
inability to look after myself, builds up like a there was no easy, discreet, fuss-free solution. considerably happier, a woman back in charge
pressure cooker. Could I find a friend with a car the right of her body. I’m not totally crazy, though. I’ll
If you’re not disabled, getting a haircut height for me to get into and boot big enough see a professional for the highlights. n
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O problematic. You need parking, access, space hairdresser to visit but deep down I couldn’t Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her
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UR to manoeuvre around the washbasins, and face the hassle, the explaining, the intimacy. neck and back in a riding accident in April 2010
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The Times Magazine 9
LONDON
‘A SINGLE PARKING SPACE
RECENTLY WENT ON SALE
FOR £350,000’
Sathnam Sanghera photographed
in London and, opposite,
Wolverhampton by Tom Jackson