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John Machin's avatar

Oddly enough, I only saw John Humphrys doing the 'hairdryer' once too (full disclosure: I used to work on the Today programme too, with Rachel, in another epoch). I suppose, given he must have worked with many hundreds of people, if we all saw him lose it once, that adds up to quite an output of heated air.

I can be blasé about him, because I wasn't in the blast zone - and he was far from the worst - but I've been there with other media types. And the only conclusion to be made is that this sort of behaviour belongs back in the misty past when Humphrys et al first tried it on and got away with it. Which sounds like a massive truism, but when you're actually feeling the heat, it can feel very different, like it really IS all your fault, and you somehow deserve what you're getting.

I think there's a status element to this sort of thing. Perhaps part of the reason producer John could shrug it off was that he felt himself to be essentially Humphrys' equal in the palpable internal class system of the BBC. I could never shake the feeling that the production teams, presenters, management were 'officers', and we, the studio technicians, were 'enlisted men', and women. Just like in the Army, we 'messed' separately. Not that there were physical barriers; we just 'knew our place' and seldom tried to socialise with people out of our ken.

When you add that to the mix, it's easier to understand how being in the firing line would have affected us. Oddly, just being aware of one's place in a hierarchy doesn't make any of the effects of the hierarchy go away.

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Hilary Thorogood's avatar

I really loved the John Humphries intro to this piece😃

I was stuck particularly by the thoughts around friends I ve had some friendships in my life that have been difficult for some reason and are ‘hard work’. A friendship should be easy and enable us to pick it back up even years later as if no time has passed.

The best advice I was given was ‘dont stay around people who bring you down’. I have ended one or two of those kinds of ‘friends’ during my life and it’s rarely easy but with hind sight it’s been the right call every time…….

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