Handy

A letter borrowed from behind The Times paywall... 

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Sir, I can understand how Sathnam Sanghera felt when he was mistaken for the IT guy by his much more experienced fellow journalist Sir Samuel Brittan (Notebook, Oct 19). But he notes that it was his first day in national journalism, so some excuse perhaps for Sir Samuel. When I had a similar encounter with Alan Yentob, an equally big wig at the BBC, I had been reporting regularly for years on the main BBC TV news programmes. I was returning with some colleagues to the newsroom from the canteen at Television Centre when we came across Yentob talking on an internal phone on the corridor wall. He looked at me, with the merest hint in his eyes that he might have recognised me from somewhere, but then spoilt it all by asking if I had come to repair the radiator.

Neil Bennett

BBC reporter 1971-2006

London SW12