I do miss Nicholas Campbell Clarke. He was better known to the nation as Nick Clarke and he presented The World At One on BBC Radio 4 at lunchtime every weekday. I liked him because of his extremely skilled interviewing technique. This last few months, in the lead up to the General Election, he would have been in his element.
Unlike today's interviewers, mainly men I have to add, he was rarely if ever aggressive, and never rude. That was part of his skill. He made his interviewees feel secure and in control. He rarely interrupted them. Then, oh so politely, he would ask the killer questions. If he didn't feel satisfied with the answers he persisted, gently and calmly, to ask those questions. And if those being interviewed had been in any way deceitful, they squirmed. Nick gave them all the rope they needed.
Compare that with the way political interviews are conducted today. They are less like interviews and more resemble aggressive heated arguments. And are far less informative than Nick Clarke's elegant encounters.
Sadly Nick was taken from us way before his time, and I am sure I am not alone in missing him and his dulcet tones on the radio.
