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Friday Diary: God Save The Queen!

Shelagh Fogarty tells us why she owes Her Majesty a debt of gratitude. All over lippy.

By Shelagh Fogarty

16 Sep 2011, 08:00

* Some weeks the sheer variety of life hits me like lightening. This has been such a week. 'Inspirational' is a word thrown around these days a bit too freely or when people really mean 'impressive'. Alistair Hignall, who I met for the first time on Monday, is both. This is a man whose physical strength and sporting skill saw him play rugby for England at the highest level and county cricket with great success too. He then went on to be a first class broadcaster. He had a 'portfolio' career well before anyone coined the phrase. There's a cruel irony then in the disease he was diagnosed with a few years ago. MS has already reduced his physical strength and as he eloquently describes in his recent autobiography, it's begun to threaten his voice. Thankfully for him and us there was no evidence of the latter when he joined me on air this week. As a physical presence he's one of those people who seem to crackle with life - Megawatt smile and eyes full of appetite.  (I defy anyone to look at the front cover of his book and not be cheered up!). His wife and sons are the bedrock, he says, and I'm sure he's theirs. What stayed with me from our conversation was how manfully he has faced what came and will come. Yes it's hard to give up your sport and move on, see your broadcasting career end because of illness, and make sure you live a good life despite layers of it peeling away as MS progresses, but Hignall is a man who, it seems to me, is most talented not at sport, but at living.

* On the London Underground this week the people watching we all do also led me to wonder about the breadth of what people face and how we never really know the lives going on around us at one remove.  A couple in their forties sat opposite me, both dressed smartly in black and so on a busy train didn't stand out until I noticed both had tear stained faces and red eyes. I looked away not wishing to cause them discomfort but couldn't help looking again as I got off. They were looking in separate directions, both concentrating on not cracking, or so it seemed to me. The public self and the private self. Everyone's struggle I suppose.

* Some have a bigger struggle than others, though. I interviewed a woman on Tuesday whose ten year old, born a boy and physically confirmed a boy in hospital tests, is now living as a girl, with the agreement and support of family and school. Both gave a clear account of the past few years and it was obvious the mother had seen her child suffer terribly trying to be two people. How school children might react is another thing altogether.

* I love overhearing conversations being held in public. It seems less nosey somehow. Two amused me this week. A group of young Kiwis were on the same carriage as me heading towards TV Centre in Wood Lane. "Wow, there it is!" said one as the huge BBC satellites appeared in our view. Nice, I think, they're probably going on a BBC tour. Nope. Westfield Shopping Centre in fact. It was left to two eleven year old schoolboys on the return journey to restore my faith in the young. One says: "Oh he's always boasting about knowing Leo Blair". The other, after an unwitting but devastating pause, mutters into the air: "How sad is that, and poor Leo Blair. Do you know him?" "No". Silence. Pure Cook and Moore.

* I'll end on my favourite picture of the week. The Queen reapplying her lippy in public. I've always been told it's bad form. I'm officially freed from the bonds of pale lips now Her Majesty has led the way. God Save The Queen.