5 Portland Place

I missed this last week, but very much like this tale from Nicholas Owen in the Mail, about his print/ broadcasting career change. He'd been Business Editor on James Goldsmith's Now magazine, when it folded...

'In those days the BBC had an Appointments Department in a kind of shop across the road from Broadcasting House in London. So one day in 1981, on a whim, I walked in and the lady behind the counter said, ‘Can I help you?’ as if it was a branch of Sainsbury’s. I said I’d like to work for the BBC and she told me about a job as a regional journalist in Newcastle.'

 'I’d recently divorced, my father had died, so I decided to give it a shot.I drove up to Newcastle and met the two men running the newsroom, who asked me two questions: one about the political make-up of the Northeast, which I was able to answer, the other about football in the area, which I knew nothing about.'

'Well, you’d better not cover that, then!’ they said, and gave me the job. It turned out to be the best place to learn the trade and I found the Geordies the nicest people… once I could understand what they were saying!'