MY colleague David Wooding’s exclusive interview with Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a fascinating insight in to how his recent brush with death has changed him.
David, who has interviewed Boris many times over the years, observes: “He has emerged from the life-changing events of the past few weeks as a much more complex figure . . . who no longer feels the need to play to the crowd.”
That this public school-educated proponent of the British “stiff upper lip” became tearful also reveals how deeply it has affected him.
How people react to the prospect of death is explored many times in the movies — most notably in the thought-provoking It’s A Wonderful Life, in which George Bailey is about to commit suicide when an angel intervenes to show him what the life of his loved ones would be like without him.
But how they react in real life can be just as revealing. Take the recent experience of Roy Burton, from Harrogate, North Yorks, for example.
Roy, a 53-year-old painter and decorator, contracted coronavirus and spent six days in intensive care being given large amounts of oxygen. Just like Boris.
“I can’t put into words how utterly exhausted I was,” he says, but after leaving ICU and being moved back to a ward at Harrogate District Hospital, he was finally able to make a video call to his partner Sam Howling, 36.
UNDENIABLY CHAOTIC
“As soon as I saw her I started blubbing and I proposed to her,” adds Roy. “We had been together for 14 years and being that close to death made me think that we should be properly married.”
He is now recovering at home and they are planning to wed once lockdown ends.
So what, one wonders, went through Boris’s mind as he was pulled from the brink of death and lay there counting his blessings
People who have been in a similar situation always speak of how, suddenly, all the material trappings of life mean very little and your primary focus becomes all the things you want to say to the people who matter in your life.
In short, you want to make amends, apologise where necessary, or simply let them know (if you haven’t already) how much they mean to you.
Just days after returning home, Boris was back in hospital to welcome his new son Wilfred in to the world. What a mind-blower that must have been.
So, will the new, “more complex” Boris be apparent not just on how he runs the country, but also in how he conducts his private life in future?
In the past, it has been undeniably chaotic, with two failed marriages thanks to infidelity and a child born to a former mistress who he hasn’t acknowledged publicly.
So, one wonders, will his ex-wives, adult children and various ex-lovers now see a more contrite, thoughtful Boris in their midst?
After all, it’s far easier to have a happier future when — in My Name Is Earl style — you have apologised for the mistakes and insensitivities of your past.
POWER OF BELIEF
A 30ft shape spotted in Loch Ness is believed to be the biggest sighting ever recorded of the “monster”.
Believed being the operative word.
Because, in a world where camera technology can capture a flea eating its breakfast from five miles away, all the images of “Nessie” still remain frustratingly indistinct.
Is this Strictly ethical?
FORMER Strictly dancer Kevin Clifton has revealed how he pulled in a favour with the show’s choreographer to clinch Stacey Dooley as a dance partner.
Thereby contradicting the claim by BBC bosses that neither the pros nor celebs get to choose their partners.
Equally, several former participants have revealed to me how they got the partner they wanted at the session where celebs form an outer circle and the pros move around each one so bosses can spot any potential chemistry.
They simply danced lacklustrely when it was someone they weren’t keen on, then suddenly turned in to Ginger Rogers on acid when the partner they wanted hoved in to view.
FOX KEEPS IT HONEST
THE incorrigible Laurence Fox has once again refused to conform to the modern-day celebrity norm of never saying anything controversial in interviews.
This time the actor revealed that he was expelled from Harrow school for having sex at the sixth-form ball and that his messy divorce from Billie Piper made him think: “What’s the point of being alive?”
“But then,” he adds, “a very wise person said to me, ‘Don’t top yourself darling, she’d be thrilled’.”
A refreshing change from the usual celebrity, post-divorce trope of “We’re still madly in love and fantastic friends” while, behind the scenes, spending the debt of a small country on pitbull lawyers to tear each other apart.
Not all insults are 'isms'
THE Duchess of Sussex has lost the first stage of her privacy case against The Mail on Sunday newspaper, with a High Court judge ruling that a swathe of her arguments were “embarrassing”, “vague” and “irrelevant”.
That’s the glorious thing about the law. There’s no place for emotion, it operates on evidence-based facts alone.
Take, for example, the case of secretary Hilary Munro, who sued her employers – ironically, a legal firm in Salisbury, Wilts – for age discrimination when colleagues sent her a 50th birthday card.
She claimed she felt “ambushed, punched, slapped and humiliated” after her age was exposed.
But tribunal judges ruled that the card had been sent as an act of kindness and threw out the case.
Quite right too. Just because you feel that an action is rooted in racism/ageism/sexism/whatever, doesn’t always mean that it actually is.
Pre-lockdown, attempts to shut down valid debate by wielding an alleged “ism” as a weapon were at an all-time high as the edges between feelings and facts became dangerously blurred.
Let’s hope that, post-lockdown, the great leveller that is common sense prevails.
MINIATURE RAILWAY
ENGINEER Allan Pyne has spent the past 18 years building a small, hillside railway track to take him and his wife up to their elevated bungalow in Dawlish, Devon.
Unless, of course, there’s ever a leaf on the line.
Let clothes shops open, too
ONE of my favourite clothes shops is independently owned by a Frenchman who sources all the outfits himself.
This week he emailed loyal customers to say he was struggling to survive and could we please buy a £100 voucher now that he will honour as worth £110 once his shop is allowed to reopen.
He has furloughed his handful of staff, but of course there are still energy bills to pay, plus rent and interest on any business loans. So many small businesses are suffering like this.
If we can socially distance in a queue to buy food or a drill in B&Q, then I fail to see why we can’t do the same for frocks/plants/trainers/homewares and save small shops from financial ruin.
PRETTY OK LOCKDOWN
BILLIONAIRE Umar Kamani – founder of Manchester-based clothing giant Pretty Little Thing – has furloughed 86 members of staff at taxpayers’ expense.
Which, considering his car collection alone is worth more than £1million, is pretty, er, rich.
Meanwhile, according to his Instagram feed, he’s isolating in Dubai with girlfriend Nada Adelle.
Now this, one suspects, is the kind of “lockdown” the majority of men would relish.
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