Alastair Stewart – Favourite Things
Each week Reaction Weekend brings you Favourite Things – interviews with interesting people about the skills, hobbies, pleasures and past times that make them who they are.
Alastair Stewart is a journalist and broadcaster. He was a newsreader on ITV News for over 35 years and is the longest-serving male newsreader on British Television. He has recently become a relief presenter for Talk Radio and is a patron for a number of charities including Kids for Kids, Scope and Brooke.
These are a few of his favourite things…
Our Animals
From Aesop to Beatrix Potter, animals are celebrated for their great qualities and character, they are so much more than lumbering things that clamber up on you and try to lick you. We are “horsey” types but also have a couple of donkeys, a cat and two dogs. In non-covid times, some of the horses are competitive show-jumpers, ridden by our youngest son. One is a rescued rare breed, Door-mouse the Exmoor; one is a super-charged Shetland, Nutkin, who we took on from a friend who couldn’t keep him. In these troubled times, their presence and affections have grown in significance. They are a source of solace and their loyalty and dependence are curiously reassuring. From early morning exercise to late night feeds and double rugging against the cold, the duties have grown into acts of reciprocated love. They give the current trials of humanity a context. They know nothing of test and trace or viral variants and have no interest in point scoring politics. All are loved; all are so much more than pets. All are among our favourite things.
My children
My relationships with my four children are certainly among my favourite things. Our eldest writes about football: tactics, form, history and finance. While the crowds are gone, for now, the game goes on – at home and abroad. We know little of his subject matter but relish his enthusiasm, knowledge and success. Our daughter is headteacher of two private prep schools and governor of a third, in the public sector. Through her, we have lived the educational front-line of the coronavirus. To see her give evidence to Robert Halfon’s Education Select Committee was a highpoint for us, we felt such a profound measure of pride. Our two younger sons work in equestrianism: breeding, dealing and providing livery; it isn’t a hobby, it is a living. In better times, they competed too, but little of that survived lockdown. It is a hard-hit sector and to see two young men, in their twenties, struggle to make ends meet in a business they created is remarkable. Their successes are among our favourite things and that they share their disappointments and frustrations with us, openly and honestly, is a curious favourite too.
Zoom
Our eldest son and our daughter are experts at Zoom and virtual meetings – they are vital vehicles for what they do. Pre-covid, we had never heard of either. But I have just finished a Zoom briefing for the Annual Lecture for the Worshipful Company of Farriers which I will be hosting for my beloved Brooke Charity. I have also hosted Christmas carols for the water charity, Just a Drop, and the Brendan Care Homes. I have been an MC for more quiz nights than I can remember, and I have interviewed my heroes Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert for the Borders Book Fair for my friend Rory Bremner. These are all among my recent favourite things; traditional fair, with fine folk, but through a medium I couldn’t have even described a year ago.
Music
From the pounding bass lines of Beethoven to the peerless rock ‘n’ roll of the Rolling Stones, I have always loved music. I was due to see the Stones in July of last year in Atlanta, Georgia: an entirely selfish treat at the invitation of a rather special friend. Alas, the “No Filter” tour was a victim of coronavirus, so I have to live in the hope that humanity will triumph and the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world will rock again one day in the future. In the meantime, I find joy in their canon of work on iPlayer. You Can’t Always Get What You Want is an elegy to the 1960s and a philosophy I readily buy into. Waiting For A Friend, is a lilting ballad that speaks to the genius of the Glimmer Twins as well as to the bond we have with cherished friends. I’ve escaped 19th Nervous Breakdown in the pandemic, but on grey mornings, when disappointment, frustration and repetition raise their ugly heads, Start Me Up does the trick. As for the other guy, his choral 9th, and his orchestration of Ode to Joy, is always one for when the going gets rough.
Politics and journalism
Politics and journalism remain two of my favourite things; both have taken a pounding these last few months, and that has saddened me. Good journalism is objective reportage, offering a fair account of the day’s events and an intelligent interrogation of the issues. Covid is undeniably a complex subject to cover, but I am not sure all have risen to the challenge. David Shukman and Tom Clarke, the science correspondents of BBC News and ITV News, have stood out as those who have. If you were to ask my least favourite things in the world this would include the shouty, slanging matches that pass for interviews sometimes and the partisanship that decrees “Government bad, Opposition good”. At its best, parliamentary politics rises to a national crisis; it doesn’t descend into a playground brawl with an eye on the next General Election. And at its best, journalism will chart the triumphs and shortfalls in equal measure. The hope that we see some of that, and may see more soon, is another of my favourite things.
