Test Match Special - View from the Boundary: Mishal Husain

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Broadcaster and author Mishal Husain joins Jonathan Agnew for a View from the Boundary in the TMS commentary box at Lord’s. They discuss her experience interviewing Elon Musk, the partition of India in 1947, and the humbling nature of cricket.

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souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallata or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. T's and Cs apply. from BBC Radio 5 Live. So, our guest today is a multi-award winning journalist, broadcast, a presenter. She's hosted some of the highest profile programs, including News at 10, BBC Breakfast, Today program,

and she's interviewed people like, well, Satchington, Dalka, and Kevin Peterson, I gather, in her time, too. She's hosted the leaders' debate before the general election last year, conducted the first interview with Harry and Megan Markle. Now one of the lead voices at Bloomberg, where she's already interviewed Elon Musk, I'm looking forward to hearing about that.

that. And her weekly interviews are becoming visualised podcasts later this year, which is also written in a claim book called Broken Threads, which is a fascinating story of her grandparents' lives, that changed forever as a result of the 1947 partition. We shall have seen. It's one of those faces that you just see so often on the telly, always looking very calm, and here you are, and I'm turning the tables on you today. You are. I'm in your hands, and in this beautiful setting. I know, I know, and isn't it? It's the first time we've been up here, I think, isn't it?

It's definitely the first time I've had the vantage point from this side. And I think, I mean, I thought the pavilion was pretty good. I've been in the pavilion a few times with my husband, who's a member. But from this side, it is rather wonderful. And yeah, and it's been such a, to have that moment just before the lunch. I know. It's what cricket is all about. Well, it's what Ben Stokes.

I mean, there are just a very few people in every sport, I suppose, who can just do something ridiculously special. They sort of lift themselves, don't they? And Ben Stokes is one. I mean, he's the only person in that team who could have done that. You think? Yes. I remember being in the BBC newsroom on a Sunday afternoon ready to do the tea time news

when the World Cup final of the year of the Superover was happening. And I was just trying to write the headlines thinking. And just at that moment, we had that extraordinary moment. And all of us were looking around the newsroom, you know, half of us on our feet going, what just happened because we need to find the five second version of this that can go in the headlines and we were an uncharted territory for most people who do not know the game inside out

the way you and your colleagues here at people's sport That was a great day I mean the atmosphere here then which is that difference between kind of test cricket and one day cricket what do you like what gets you into cricket well I love to see a game to see a team from anywhere in the world performing at this kind of level to think about the kind of commitment and the way that even

the best players can have a really bad day. You know, there is a great levelling. Oh, the first ball is. I mean, I've seen, I've got three cricket playing sons. I've seen plenty of school cricket and club cricket in my time. And you realize you've got to really be there for them because even when they think they're on great form and they are on great form in other ways, you know, things can change in a moment. And I think, obviously, that is really, that is really hard and I had one boy whose passion is spin bowling and maybe that's particularly probably one of the chanceiest

chances aspects of the game but I mean here you are soaking up the atmosphere and the history of the game and the history of these two countries which is part of what I've written about so I feel there are many layers to this of course there's immediate sport on the field but

I think there's so much more happening in the background and I and a day like this is when you can really absorb absorb that beyond the game I mean just aesthetically I suppose some people say oh Lord is all snobby and all that

traditional and so on I mean look at it you know the pavilion and you've got the band out there striking up in front of the ground and I mean it is kind of a bit like that but it just it just looks so lovely doesn't it and the whites and the grass lots of people out with very young children

hope they're all right in this kind of heat but I've seen this ground over the years a lot more women come now a weekday evening they're all because I think that the place is moving with the times the game is moving with the times and of course it needs to do that I mean it's always been an international game in in every way but I think that yeah I think the the atmosphere here is wonderful today and wonderful very regularly yeah as opposed with your Asian background it's inevitable that you like cricket isn't it I mean was there that sort of influence from your family yeah well actually my own father was I don't know why cricket passed him by but everyone else in my family is and was cricket mad.

So, you know, I think the first time I came to Lords was probably in the 80s with my grandfather, my grandfather, Muntars, who actually is one of the characters in my book, because I made my four grandparents who lived through this seismic time in the middle of the 20th century. I made them the four central characters of my book, but he was the first person that I came to Lords with. And, you know, I can pretty much remember where we were sitting down in probably to the left of where we were. the old man's down. And that was the first time I ever, I ever experienced lords. Yeah. Well, it is unforgettable, isn't it? I was 11 sitting in the stand over there with my dad.

You can remember where you were as well. Yeah, the old grandson, they've torn it down now and replace you with that rather smart one. But yeah, because you do remember things like that, didn't you? You just do. It stays with you forever. So you were that mum then on the road, were you? I mean, one son playing over there and another son playing 20 miles away and just sort of ferrying around and everything. I don't know if I can say this in this setting, but there were times, you know, summer evening, usually the, you know, term when exams are happening and, you know, you've got your, you know, nine-year-old who really needs to be going to bed, but is still in the middle of, you know, it's still fielding and you're thinking, this is a school night. But, you know, beyond those frustrations, I'm, you know, I'd like to think I've been supportive of their, of their playing and their enjoyment.

And love of this game is going to last a lifetime. My husband used to come here with his father. There's a brick in the wall with his father's name and his name and our three boys' name. So, you know, when we're long gone, I think our sons will be coming here and looking at that brick in the wall. I didn't know about that wall. So a member can have it, or you pay inevitably here, I suspect, but you're there. Well, I'm not going to have to have a little look. Yes. Ours happens to be just above.

just above one that has the Prince of Wales and Prince George on it. And you're above it. I don't think they paid. But our names are close to theirs. Oh, well, fair enough. They do come. They hang out sometimes in the grandstand over there.

So they're always trying to get them encouraged. But don't you think cricket is a great education as well for kids? You know, because as you said earlier, the ups and downs. You know, even Don Bradman got a second ball duck in his last thing. I mean, it is a incredible level of this sport. Yes. And the chance twists and turns is very much a part of that. It's character building to feel vulnerable in that way when you're out there.

I think there's an etiquette to the game, but also, you know, sledging's a part of the game, so you've got to have a thick skin. It was a bit fascinated by that. You're a bit fascinated by the sledging. Well, I mean, look, there are aspects of what my sons have heard, which has really made me laugh. Like, for example, because we have twins. And so two of our three boys are twins. and there was a time when they're on the, you know, the opposing team,

they're on the same team and the opposing team are saying to them, you know, that the other one is the favourite child of the parents. So there's all kinds of ways that you can wind up, wind up siblings or twins who are playing in the same team, but I thought that one was rather good. Yeah, but actually one could bat twice. If one's not quite as good as the other, then you could... What, you mean, they're not identical.

I don't think they couldn't. Oh, okay. There's a thought, though. if they were. I mean, they've also been in teams where one was the other one's captain and I feel that that captain didn't get quite the respect

I think he deserved from some of his players. Oh, is that fair enough? Yeah. All those dynamics play out. It does, it is that leveling thing that is an education and you're out there with your twin brother or whoever it may be by yourselves and you've got that opposition

you've got 11 around you who are snarling away a bit sometimes and they're saying a few things. It's you and your mate, isn't it? And that's it. Yeah, absolutely. The teamwork, the trust in each other. There are so many life lessons in all of this. The leadership, the captains, you don't always think they're doing exactly the right thing, let alone the umpies.

But you often don't think your captain might necessarily be making the right decisions, but they are your captain. So favourite players, I mean, we've got any particular over the years who would stand out as being, I think I might. I might send an Imran Khan coming on here. Imran Khan is the person who immediately came to mind because obviously I've seen him in, you know, through many dimensions. I've, you know, watched him in his playing years. I've interviewed him in the early years of when, you know, he had entered politics and no one thought that he really had a chance to go anywhere.

He was the person we ended, I think, on the 70th anniversary of Pakistan. And I was doing BBC reporting for that. anniversary and it was you know you wasn't the person who you thought was necessarily ever going to go to the to get to the top job as prime minister which he didn't I have interviewed him as as prime minister as well and of course like now with him being locked up for as long as he has and I know you were in Pakistan with the team last year and you know him yes very well made against him well many times it's very hard I think it's a terrible situation to see him locked up in that way for this long on the

these kinds of charges and with new cases brought that way, I think it's a very sad situation. I really feel for his family, his boys in particular, it's an awful position for them to be in. So I hope he's staying strong. Yeah, I mean, he was extraordinarily charismatic, wasn't he? And I'd imagine that his interviews as Prime Minister had been quite serious, wouldn't they? Because he just was, he was this anti-corruption figure, wasn't he? That's what he was standing for. Even as prime minister, the time I interviewed him as prime minister was in Davos where he'd come.

And even as prime minister, I would say there was an informality around him. But I'm not going to underplay just what a hard transition it is from what you're used to one kind of leadership. And he was an incredible charity fundraiser. The cancer hospital that he built in Pakistan is an absolutely wondrous institution. but transitioning into political leadership with all its complexities and the different kind of team that you have to have around you

without everyone makes mistakes and he wouldn't be immune from making mistakes but I think to see him in the position that he is today is very hard to take. It is. Do you understand Pakistani politics? It just seems an absolute minefield, isn't it? I mean, one lot come in the last little while and then they get herded off

and most of them go out of the country and another lot have a go. And then those who were out of the country come back again and they come in and they kick out the ones out of the country who've come in the second place. It all seems pretty chaotic. People tend to wait their turn and then come back.

You know, in broken threads, I've taken a long view and it did end up being an even longer view of the history of India, Pakistan and Britain in this period and British involvement in South Asia. And I could see the reason I say it ended up taking being an even longer view than when I started off is I thought I have a 20th century story to tell. I thought I have the story to tell which is that my family lived through a seismic period between 1945 and 1947 as the, you know, my grandfather's having served in the Second World War for the British Indian Army then ended up being part, the whole family ended up being part of another huge upset over the next couple of years. And the reason that it became a much longer story is I ended up having to go

further and further back in time on Britain's involvement in India, right back to 1857 and what Indians and Pakistanis call the First War of Independence and the British called the mutiny, which was an immense rebellion, not everywhere in India, but a significant area of the Gandhetic plain in the north. And Lucknow, I've been to Lucknow and seen the grave. My grandfather was born in Lucknow. What I'm wearing today is from Lucknow.

Is it? Yes, the ruins of the British residency in Lucknow tell the story. story of, I mean, that rebellion was put down brutally by the British, and it was then that India became part of the empire, formerly part of the empire, and was known as the jewel in the crown. But, you know, then from that moment and the determination on the part of the government in London to make sure that something like that never happened again. So there was a tremendous entrenchment of British authority that happened in the second half of the 19th century as a result, and then came the First World War and the incredible

contribution that India made to victory in the First World War. And I think one of the conclusions I came to was that really the lesson that Britain should firmly have taken away from that moment is that India deserved to become a self-governing part of the empire at that point, a dominion along the lines of Canada and Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. And that didn't happen. of British governments were not ready for that. And there were a series of roundtable conferences, Gandhi, Jinnah, other leaders attended these conferences at the end of the 1920s and into the 1930s. So there was movement in that direction, but it was always short of what India was expecting. And then you get into the 1930s when, because of the rise of Nazism, because of events in Europe, British

attention was essentially was away from India and parked. the position of Indian governance and how Indian governance should be developing. And the war came. And so after the Second World War, there was this incredibly intense couple of years where the Attlee government, who had been elected, at exactly this point, 80 years ago, had been elected with Indian independence as part of their manifesto and wanted to get on with it as quickly as possible. It was rushed, wasn't it?

And that is the story I tell where I think it's very hard to look at that period and think that it wasn't rushed. that there was a, there was an intensity, and of course there were demands from South Asia as well. But I think it's hard to look at that period and think that it was British foreign policy at its finest hour. And I write about the figures of that time, Mountbatten, of course, but also a man who's really been forgotten by British history, and that's Claude Orkinleck, who was the second most important official in British India. He was the commander-in-chief of the British Indian Army. and he and Mountbatten,

who together were the most powerful men in British India, were at absolute loggerheads. Orkaneck thought what Mountbatten was doing was going to create a law and order nightmare. He thought that it was not properly thought through the idea of setting a deadline to leave and just saying one way or another, British India will end at this point.

He thought this was irresponsible. And there was a terrible task in maintaining law and order when it actually came to it from the summer through the autumn of... About the 2 million died. I mean, the tales that come out of it. And you've told it through your both sets of grandparents' eyes, haven't you?

I have, but I've also wanted to tell stories of great herism and courage and humanity through that time. And I was thinking of one because I was talking to Prakash a moment ago. And I realized that his parents met in Ravel Pindi, now Pakistan, but the town which my grandparents made their home. after they left India in 1947. And, you know, when they came to Ravlpindi, my grandparents, they had a Sikh friend, a very wealthy older gentleman who had an incredible house in Ravlpindi.

And by the time my grandparents arrived in September, 1947, he'd already fled to India because of the climate for Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. But he wrote to them and said, I know you've come to Pakistan, and I know you're living in, Flashman's Hotel on the Mall in Ravalpindi. Please go and live in my house. My house is there for you. My staff are there for you.

And they didn't move into this house because it was full of treasures and they felt it was too much to look after and be responsible for. But what an incredible gesture of generosity. Someone who's been forced to flee their home for fear of their life thinking, here are people, Muslims from another community, who have had a journey in the opposite direction and maybe my home can be of use to them. It is extraordinary. I mean, our visits to Pakistan, I mean, nothing but tales of great welcome and generosity and kindness.

And it's kind of an image of Pakistan that, I don't know, often doesn't exist, isn't it? It's often a very negative feel about. Well, it's been wonderful to see international cricket being played again in Pakistan. And you know, one of those tournaments a couple of years ago, international tournaments hosted by India, where Pakistan were playing in India and there were visas given to. Pakistani journalists and I could and some of them of course it was an incredible once in a lifetime experience for them to travel to India and one of them went to Chennai where he knew his grandparents had come from before 1947 and he was thousands of miles away and he was able to

document that journey and to and to relate to the origin of his grandparents in a new way so where there are these opportunities for people to travel and and to and to see places that are otherwise for most Pakistanis and Indians off limits. I think there are some really heartwarming stories that come out of them. And through my work at the BBC, I had this access to India as well as to Pakistan. And that's also part of why I felt I had to write broken threads, because I had been able to travel to India in a way that no one else in my family had. And in fact, the last program I made for BBC television was who do you think you are

at the end of last year, just before I, just before I, just. just before I left for, I moved to Bloomberg. And it was an extraordinary experience to discover, even though I'd written broken threads about my family, I went further back in time, you know, the stories of not only British people who had made their homes in India, you know, 150 years ago, but I discovered I had an American ancestor

who had come from Massachusetts to India in about 1820 to seek his fortune. in the textile trade, what we would today call economic migration. Yes, of course. But in that context, we call it seeking your fortune overseas. Did partition have to happen? I mean, having written all this and gone into it so deeply

and the stories that you tell, I mean, was it totally unavoidable? This huge landmass had to be divided up as it was. And let's not forget, East Pakistan as well, now Bangladesh, that was all part of it. I, the way that my grandmother Taira, who's a very wise woman, she left some, she left some audio tapes and I quote one of them right at the end to answer this very question. She says it need not have happened had there been a different mindset. And I often, because in my work as a

journalist, so much of which has been in political journalism and I've looked at governance in different parts of the world. And now I look at the example of Northern Ireland and think that's a really interesting example of, which is not. perfect, but where a governance model where people, different communities feel vested and feel that their rights are not going to be, you know, ridden roughshod. And that, okay, that's a late 20th century approach that has made, that put that Good Friday Agreement together in which outside forces are also embedded and say we are going to ensure that what is in this agreement is respected over the years.

So I don't think it had to happen, but for it not to happen, they would have been a very different, they would have had to be a different mindset on the part of the British and indeed on the part of Indian leaders who did not get on personally at that time. Jinnah, who later became the founding father of Pakistan

and Nehru, India's long-serving Prime Minister from independence until his death in the 1960s, these were people who could barely be in the same room together. so there is a lot of blame that can be shared out around that period in time but I hope through broken threads I've put all the pieces together the people who wonder about this complex and contentious history which is difficult to access because of the complexity I like to think that through looking at it through this human lens

and through using the lives of my grandparents and their contemporaries and their friends most of whom they never saw again after 1947 they lost touch with them completely but whose grandchildren I have, in some cases, got in touch with them who've become friends. So there's a funny full circle element to it. Well, I'm looking forward to reading it, very much. I hope you enjoyed, because you know these three countries very well. Yes, we go there a lot. And there's a sense of frustration as well as an outsider might feel about why, you know, sort things out.

You know, especially in the cricketing sense, but it just seems so, so entrenched. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space, and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. In Turkey, if you're willing to take a detour, you'll discover the food, even social media hasn't got to yet. from Michelin stars and wine in Urla to traditional recipes and the home of Baclavar in the east discover the culinary capital of Gaziantem

and talk to the locals every dish has its own story flavors experimentation and tradition Turkey has it all plan your detour at go-turkia.com right let's talk about interviewing come on because part of my job as well and I'm sure you look at interviews being done and I can sort of learn things from people too, don't you?

I mean, you are very calm. You've got that face, your gentle face, and yet there's a steel in there that skewers people who don't want to tell you anything. I mean, you do a brilliant job with that. I mean, do you think they're a bit intimidated sometimes? that you interview is that. If they know your reputation, it is a reputation, is a reputation important? I mean, John Humphreys have got a very different sort of reputation of being this,

you know, very feisty sort of interviewer. And I saw John a close quarter and learned a lot from him. The way I like to think about my approach is that there's no substitute for doing your homework. It's part of the respect you show your guest. It is, you've read their work, you've thought about why they're choosing to do this interview. And you, it's not a question whether you agree with them or not. It's putting in the time beforehand and thinking, look, we all want, interviews have to travel. They can't be, especially nowadays and in where everyone is competing for attention, they can't be dull. But the way I think about it is what is the thing I really would like to get out of this interview? And that doesn't mean, that doesn't mean hammering the

guest. That doesn't, but ideally it does mean new information, but sometimes it's a window into their thinking. When I interviewed Elon Mask, it was only eight weeks ago, but it's certainly a long time in his life, because in that, that was still when he was working with the US government. Yeah, that changed about a, about a week after I interviewed him was when he stepped back from Doge. But for example, I thought about that. I think that interview for Bloomberg was a different interview to how it would have been had I interviewed him on the BBC. Right, interesting. So why is that? I think partly because primarily Bloomberg is a financial news organization and therefore I did I had I wanted to and I would be expected to ask him about

all his companies as well as his business work in fact I didn't get to all his companies because he has so many of them including the one called the boring company which is doing tunneling good name one of his lesser known companies but but but I but it wasn't going to be an interview about what he says on X for example and it was an interview partly was an interview about his politics as it comes into Doge or about his political thinking more broadly or certainly his political spending. But I, his company, his corporate world is interesting enough that there are important things to ask about Tesla and about Starlink, which is a company that is essential to the Ukrainian front line because Starlink units are at every Ukrainian front line

position or about SpaceX, which is at the heart of the, of the US national space program. So I did ask about all of those things, but I think the thing that he found most difficult was what I asked him about Doge. Because there, I had to make a choice. Like, there are many directions that you can take questions to Elon Musk about Doge in. But I chose to ask what's happened to the two trillion dollars. I mean, there are shades of Brexit in this, right? In the what happened about the 350 million, which most of us can remember.

But I asked him what happened to the two-true, because he had said that with a great flourish just before the election at a rally in New York. And it's one of the most difficult things about it. it's pretty clear that Doja is not going to save anything close to $2 trillion. And so that he clearly didn't like. And you do have to hold your nerve as an interviewer in these kinds of situations. Because there were times in that, and that infuse on YouTube if people want to listen, see the whole thing. But there were times when he said move on, or that's false and move on.

And you have to be firm enough. in your knowledge of the facts. That's where researching through chat GPT is not going to be useful. Because if you haven't gone over the actual original source for an assertion you're putting forward enough times for it to be embedded in your memory.

So when he turns around and says, where did you get that from? You have to be able to back it up. That's a good exercise for any interview. Most of the time, you're not going to be taken to task by your interviewee in that way. But it's a good exercise.

a good approach because there has to be a reason for you asking a question that it hasn't come out of thin air. What are politicians who never want to answer questions and they know they're going to be on for four minutes or something and so there's waffle away for about three and a half of those minutes. They allow you one more question and that's it. I do you find those sort of interviews frustrating? Of course a lot of politicians, not everyone. I don't think Nigel Farrow is like this. A lot of politicians want to go on air determined not to generate any news whatsoever which means your questions have to be as pointed as possible and you may have to come back to exactly that point. Sometimes the best you're going to do is to understand the thinking behind,

like why are they not? Why is it so difficult to answer this question? But Nigel Farage, I've interviewed many times, is, you know, is generally very willing to make news and that's part of why he's, you know, achieved so much as a politician, which he has. But others, you do feel like a straight back coming out and you can sort of sense the frustration of the interview trying to get yeah you have to know when to move on yes but you have to do that on your own terms

you know not when Elon Musk said to me move on I didn't move on at that point I carried on asking him about I think it was probably what Doja had done to the global HIV response right you know US aid which was a leader a global leader in the HIV response because a previous American president, George W. Bush, decided this is an area in which America is going to lead. That global response has been very, very badly affected, if not

decimated in the last few months because of changes made to international aid. What about Harry and Megan then? Because that went a bit strange after us, isn't it? Because she said something about it, being a, I don't know, I can't remember the word she used, like a fairy tale or something. So I interviewed them on the day of their engagement. And how much notice did you have? the night before at all the night before yes and and then so and we went into kensington palace before the news had formerly broken and recorded the interview a little bit after initially we were going to 10 minutes and i said to them both look 10 minutes isn't long enough you know please can we go for longer so we ended up doing it for 20 minutes and what was really

refreshing not only not only the two of them it's you know it's a wonderful moment two people looking forward to the huge moment in their lives and the next stage of their lives and together. So there was a tremendously positive atmosphere about it. But for me as an interviewer, I also thought this is a moment that doesn't come around again because a lot of what we do as interviewers and what I do as a, you know, often a political interviewer is there is a cycle. There will be another election. I've covered two referendums in my time at the Today program.

So a lot of things will come around again. But I had this really mind-focusing moment before that interview, which is that this is a one-off. These are two people. Even if I meet them again, this is a unique moment in their life. So there is a sort of sense of this goes into an archive in somewhere. I've had other moments in my life where I've thought this goes into the archive. One of them was being outside the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey on the day of the Queen's funeral

and seeing the cortege coming towards me and thinking, you know, the baton past. in commentary terms and thinking whatever words I would whatever words I choose now I hope that they fit the moment because they are they will be in a BBC archive did you have anything to I had some thoughts down but you know but I think they do have to come from the because you don't know how you're going to feel and what your actual instinct is going to be when you when you see the actual cortege and the coffin coming towards you and the the very tricky moment I had was that as that happened and as my moment, you know, when my mic is live and I'm covering that period where just between the coffin coming into view at the

abbey and it entered the doors of the air. Radio. Radio. Right. Okay. And at that very moment, standing on the platform outside the Great West door, all the TV reporters who were by that stage off air rushed to the front of the platform to get the best possible view. And they were blocking my eye line. I'm the, I'm the one who's actually trying to do the live. commentary at that point. And my producer, who is from, who is from Five Live, rushed out and basically just like pushed everyone back, because otherwise I'd lost my line of sight completely at that point. That's what you can't anticipate, right? That doesn't happen in rehearsal. In rehearsal, you've got a lovely, clean vision, and you can see everything perfectly and nothing's

in your way. So you have to be ready for the live broadcast moment. But the Harry and Megan thing, that was before it all kind of went a bit strange. I wasn't avoiding your question. by the way. I genuinely wasn't. So, yes, later on, in the Netflix... In the Netflix documentary, she said, she talked about that interview and referred to it as an orchestrated reality show, which was a very odd thing to say.

Orchestrated, yes, it was a planned interview. It was not a doorstep. No one was going to doorstep them to talk about their engagement. So orchestrated was her choice of word for this. I don't know whether perhaps she'd been told this was the expectation that they should do an interview to mark their engagement. And in retrospect, she didn't like being told that. But look, I think these were free agents.

They could do whatever they wanted. I'm sure they could have chosen not to do an interview. And I found them extremely happy, a great compliment to each other on that day. And actually, I walked away from that interview thinking, I can really see how this is going to work in the future, that William and Catherine are, you know, they will be the Prince and Princess of Wales and they will have their responsibilities. And this couple will they talk to a lot about the Commonwealth. And I thought I can really see it. Perhaps they'll do more of the international facing work for the monarchy and for the royal family.

And I could absolutely see on that day how it would work really well in the future. I was wrong. I did the Duke of Edinburgh once. we had to submit ten questions in advance we were given 15 minutes slot and nine o'clock and all the way down there Buckingham Palace into his study

and at nine o'clock there was a bit of a conversation a door opened and it's quite a nice study it's full of books door opened and there's a rustling of paper and I felt hmm

that's the first time he's seen these ten questions anyway he came and sat down gruffly right off we go I said hello it's so nice to meet you and I asked those ten questions in a minute and a half you got one word answers

yes I said thanks very much walked out and I left Buckingham Palace feeling slightly differently I felt that as something was never going to see the light of day yeah a minute and a half I got 10 10 questions I think yours went rather better than that

and did he look as if like you know he didn't think much of any one of them particularly pleased to see me 9 o'clock in the morning do you feel more liberated now now you're away from the BBC and the public service broadcasting and the impartiality and the guidelines and all of that stuff, are you a liberated

broadcaster now? I think most jobs have parameters around them of different kinds. At the BBC, it's that framework, which is very well known in this country. But I think there are very few people in work unless they are running their own companies or perhaps they're a, you know, well, you know, complete sort of lone ranger in the in the media world. I think I think, I think, there are parameters around most roles. What I think as an interviewer is that the kind of interviewer that I have been and that I will continue to be, there is a part of the way I was at the BBC, a big part of that will always be with me because it's part of who I am and it's about how I see the world, which is that I don't think I'm ever going to be the kind of interviewer who's

going to spray my own views about and then sit down in an interview setting. Because I think that for me there is your interviewee should always feel that you are going to approach them and their story and that they're going to get a fair hearing that you will have done your homework you will have thought hard about about how they see the world and what they want to put forward and so for me there's a tension between that and and being incredibly opinionated in your own right so I think that that's the I will always have a respect for my interviewee and there is a I I think there is a tension between that and how much I will express my own views. And I'm generally also, I think, the kind of person who I really do want to know what other people think.

I really, I really, I am interested in, I am interested in other people's views more than my own. And I think that's just, I think that's the way I'm going to be. I like forward to seeing, you and Elon Musk, I'm afraid I'm one of those car drivers who's got a sticker in the back saying I bought this before Elon went mad. I quoted you, people like you, in my own. interview with him. Well, did you? I'll look forward to the response. Michelle, I'd be lovely to have met you.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having you. Oh, it's been great. Really, really fascinating. From my very first game, I knew that I wanted to be a goalkeeper. The buzz and the adrenaline that I got from it. The dream was to always represent my country. Mary Earbs, desperate to impress.

I remember saying, I know I've got what it takes. And crucial say from us. You have to be obsessed. Mary Upps with a super-suit. You just look at some of the saves that she makes. Not everyone can do that. I really had no idea really how far I would go. The England's around down at the day.

It felt like my world was ending. That was the moment. I was in pieces on the kitchen floor. You have to hit rock bottom to understand what you really want. Mary would put herself in front of anything and feel like she could stop it. I've done something that I'd always dreamed of doing, that I never knew if I'd get the opportunity to do. Mary Earps, Queen of Stops.

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