MELVYN BRAGG

A group of us like going to Dominique’s cafe. You feel abroad.

After I was divorced from my wife Cate and married Gabriel in 2019, I wanted to stay in the house. Gabriel has changed it terrifically – so it has three bedrooms and more studies.

It’s now home for us and two dogs. We have a neighbour who wants to turn two garages into a house. I’m keeping an eye.

Gabriel is the activist. She decided to lay in the middle of the street one morning to protest at how the dustmen were treating our bins. It was very effective. They now show respect.

I go to the House of Lords when I can but sitting around waiting for a vote is now very tiring for me.

– Francis was less drunk than me. It was a great interview.

I’m doing a massive thing with David Hockney at the moment which will last about four or five hours – he’s calmer now because he’s older but still energetic.

I think the arts are in good shape in this country. London beats New York. Paris is dead from the neck up. Berlin may be good but it’s not a cultural centre. I’m just hoping the ENO’s funding reprieve will see it survive.

We’ve broken through the snobbery, I think. Not all classical music is good. Sometimes the late-night stuff they play on Radio 3 sounds like a broken violin in a concrete mixer.

Free access to galleries is invaluable – we’re winners there. We’ve done so much that’s good.

bought the whole of Wigton, my home town in Cumbria, for that.

I’ve had three years of horrible health, so it’s been very convenient living close to the Royal Free Hospital.

I’ve never been a great eater-outer. I like to have a pint of Guinness and fish and chips at a pub like the Flask, the Holly Bush and the Freemasons Arms.

I’d like there to be a Labour government. I’d also like the country to be radically devolved, with power and finances given to local government, and even town councils. I know that when they’re there, they do really good work.

I’ve interviewed so many memorable people. My interview with the artist Francis Bacon was a real event. We met in his Kensington flat at 10 in the morning, where he had bottles of Champagne lined up. We then went out to his favourite restaurant around the corner and drank red wine together until 4pm. By that time I was drunk

I’ve done about 950 In Our Time programmes for Radio 4. Some subjects are tough – I always think of that line in A Streetcar Named Desire, ‘I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers’ – I rely on three academics that I’ve never met.

I always write in longhand. I’m writing my current book about my time at Oxford in longhand.

I’ve never kept a diary. But I believe that if you think hard, the important things come back. L Melvyn Bragg: Back in the Day, A Memoir, Sceptre Books, £25