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John’s former colleague and Political Correspondent, Peter Hill, has contributed this personal memoir:
I thought I would share a few memories of John Cole. I sat two yards away from his desk in our small office at the Commons for twelve years.
The most dramatic incident was in the spring of 1984 when, just before the six o’clock news, he had a heart attack in his chair. He fell backwards and turned a strange colour.
Fortunately the editor of Hansard, who was trained in first aid, soon arrived, as did the Commons Sister. We got him into a wheelchair and down the lift to a waiting ambulance. He asked me to come with him. On the short trip to Westminster Hospital, through an oxygen mask, he gave me a few messages to pass on to his wife Madge.
He also gave me his wallet. (It contained a large amount of money in notes, and I kept it for several months until the day of his return to work). I sat by him in the Intensive Care Ward for a few hours, till his wife and family arrived. He was very concerned, as his brother had died early after a heart attack. John later had a successful bypass operation that restored him to full power.
This event forged an unspoken bond between us, that went beyond work and politics. We were never friends socially, but I recall one day in 1989 he put his hand on my shoulder at the back of the Press Gallery and said “Peter, do you know what day it is today?” I racked my brains and could not think what it was. “It’s five years ago today that we went together to Westminster Hospital”, he replied. He was to live on for another twenty four years after that.
There was for me an amusing moment when he was on the World at One being interviewed by Robin Day about the fact that Sir Michael Havers, by then Lord Chancellor, was having a bypass operation, and whether this would mean his political life was over. Robin said to John something like, “Well, John, you’ve had a bypass operation yourself, so what do you think?”. John replied, “Well come to that, Robin, so have you!”
Mortality was on his mind on another occasion when I heard him arguing on the phone with the Obits Editor. “No, No, No, I won’t do it”, he said. After putting the phone down he told me that they had had the great idea of getting him, an Ulsterman, to prepare a TV obit of the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Chris Patten. “So why did you refuse?” I asked. “Well," he said, "I shall be dead long before him – and then when he goes, and they use my obit, people will ask: where was he broadcasting from?”
My colleagues mocked me when I said that what happened to John had persuaded me to walk more slowly round the corridors of Westminster. But it is true. John was a workaholic. He was up at six to be on the Today programme, he was in the office in the morning, phoning around, he might go to a lobby meeting, he might do the lunchtime radio or TV news, he would go up to TV Centre to do the main story of the day on the 9, or 10 O’clock TV News, and you might catch him being interviewed again on Newsnight.
Coming from the world of Fleet Street, where he had been a Labour Correspondent on the Guardian, deputy editor, and leader writer, he could not resist, despite his move to radio and TV, keeping up the print journalism, and he was churning out every week long “think-pieces” for the Listener till it closed, and for the New Statesman after that. In retirement he went on writing books, doing Down Your Way, appearing on Westminster Live, and so on. Some people when they retire draw a line, but with John, the adrenalin kept pumping.
Despite his contacts, his hard work, his integrity and his fairness, I did not ever feel that for me he was a mentor, as he was for John Sergeant, who said so on the World at One.
He had been parachuted into the post of Political Editor from Fleet Street and had no background in the BBC, and was not very interested in it. He was a star performer, despite the many grumbles from the public about not being able to understand what he said. He was the man who was going to lead the news with the main story of the day.
He did not feel, like his outstanding predecessor Peter Hardiman Scott, that he was the leader of a team, whose interests he could represent to management. So when John Birt came round with his scythe, and without notice or reason cut the political unit to pieces, there was a strong feeling that John had not done much to help us. No fewer than five correspondents were sent, to use a Russian analogy, to run power stations in Ulan Bator.
Although John is famous for his coverage of the Thatcher years – and I recall hearing him frequently arguing on the phone with Bernard Ingham - he was no admirer of the lady herself. He was in fact deeply embedded in the soft left of the Labour Party and the unions, having spent years covering the likes of George Woodcock, Ray Gunter, Jim Callaghan, Peter Shore and Roy Hattersley. The latter was a special friend and John would sometimes say of a quiet evening “I’m off, but if anyone calls, I’ll be with Roy”.
It was always a mistake to challenge John on any aspect of the Wilson era. But however deep his concern for unemployment and his support for the union movement, he always managed to repress his personal beliefs in his performances and in his scripts, and was scrupulously fair.
It is interesting that it has emerged that he refused a CBE. He was also a sincere Christian. I once saw him drinking tea from a mug with ‘Glasgow Celtic’ written on the side. Since he was an Ulster Protestant I asked him “Shouldn’t you really be drinking from a Rangers’ mug?” He replied with a smile: “I’m a very ecumenical Prod!”.
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