Interview: Sir Trevor McDonald, TV Presenter

Those who saw Sir Trevor McDonald atop a cheerleading triangle in his recent documentary on the Mississippi River will know likes nothing better than trying something new.

It’s what drew him to his latest project, a four-part series on the traditions surrounding the monarchy, which was shot in 3D. “I love discovering new things, so I’m proud to be part of something that’s shot that way,” he says in that instantly recognisable and reassuring voice.

During a distinguised 40-year career Sir Trevor, now 72, he has met the Queen on numerous occasions, both formally and informally, and through many contacts has garnered an insight into the workings of the monarchy, and is eager to celebrate the upcoming Diamond Jubilee.

“We’re not particularly demonstrative [as a nation] except on these royal occasions,” he says, and recalls his vantage point, with views down the Mall towards Trafalgar Square, during the Golden Jubilee in 2002. “I remember at about 4pm you couldn’t see a square inch of The Mall, it was just solid with people waiting for the balcony wave. I was told by the people I know at the Palace, the Queen never thought the reaction would be such.

“So she’s not over-arrogant or over-expecting of what people will do. She just does her job and was genuinely surprised at the enormous warmth.” During his career, Sir Trevor has interviewed the great, good and notorious but there’s true awe in his voice when he refers to those the Queen has engaged with: “All those US presidents, all those heads of state, all those Commonwealth prime ministers, all the British prime ministers since Churchill, that’s a vast, vast body of knowledge.

“We can only guess what she thinks about them all because she never says but, my goodness me: that’s impressive.”

He remembers that being a young boy growing up in Trinidad, “We were all terribly conscious of the Royal Family, it just washed over everything we did. London was the centre of our lives; it was the heart of the Empire and if you wanted to make anything of your life you tried to get to London.”

McDonald did just that, moving to London to work as a BBC producer in the 1960s. In 1973 he joined ITN as a reporter, and many Scots of a certain age will never forget an encounter McDonald had five years later at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires. Sent to Argentina to cover the 1978 World Cup finals, when only Scotland of the home nations had qualified, a story started to break that a player – Willie Johnston – had failed a drugs test.

McDonald turned up at the embassy reception, attended by all players, and tried to interview a bewildered Johnston. Enter Scotland manager Ally McLeod to protect his player, telling McDonald: “There is a time and place to interview the players during the day,” and then rather more forcefully “you’re pushing your luck, I’d just wish now you’d leave the company – you are stooping to low tactics”.

McDonald had only managed to say “Willie, you’ve heard the reports…” before he was shown the door but the story was all over News At Ten. Johnston was on the plane home the next day, in disgrace.

After his stint as a reporter, McDonald went on to become a presenter of News At Ten before retiring in 2005. He briefly returned to the channel but retired once again in 2008. The first black newsreader in the UK, McDonald became famed for his lightweight “And finally” bulletin at the end of the news. He has won more awards than any other British broadcaster and in 1999 was made a knight.

“I was sent this letter and I didn’t even tell my family for several days,” he says on being told he was to be knighted. “I was waiting for the other letter to say, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake’. I wish my parents were around as they would have been very chuffed.”

Describing himself as “a boring, bookish child who was terribly keen on sport”, McDonald says he was fascinated by those people on BBC’s World Service who got to report on big political events. “I thought, ‘What a way to live!’”

His view of the wider world was illuminated by the fact he was living in a small country with a population of little over a million.

“The outside world seemed endlessly exciting,” he says wistfully, still not quite believing his career has panned out as it has. “We [journalists] don’t have the same career structure that other institutions have so it’s pot luck. You swan around hoping for a break and I got endless breaks.

“The editors I worked with at ITN were unfailingly kind and generous to me. I don’t know what it was – maybe I have a sad face, which encourages people to help but whatever it is, it’s worked terribly well.”

Looking back he says he loved interviewing George Bush at The White House: “He was an extraordinary guy who had a very firm view of the world that sounded to us very simple, but he was not ashamed of saying it.”

He recalls asking him what he had learnt during his presidency. “I was hoping he would say something similar to Abraham Lincoln’s ‘The buck stops here’ but he said, ‘There’s good and evil and I must be on the side of the good.’ I thought, ‘Wow!’” says Sit Trevor, shaking his head in disbelief.

Memorably, he was given the first interview with Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for anti-apartheid activism on terrorism charges and released in 1990. “I could not believe after 26 years in jail, he could come out and have such a clear, uncluttered view about what he needed to do to lead South Africa into the league of democratic nations. We tried to get him to gossip about how badly he’d been treated in the prison but he never gave me an answer. And I tell you, I tried.”

It was only many years later Mandela even hinted at the hardship he’d suffered. “I went back to South Africa to interview him when the Rugby World Cup was on and he said, ‘Can you turn the lights down?’ We said, ‘Sure’ and then he asked if we could turn them down a bit further.

“I said, ‘Mr President this is television, we’ve got to have some light’ and he said, ‘It gets into my eyes. I’ve got splinters in my eyes from breaking rocks.’ Just that. I’d been to dinner with him many times and not a word.

“I don’t know anybody quite like that, so statesmanlike. He’d endured so much at the hands of the white government and he didn’t have a racist bone in his body.”

Another of McDonald’s coups was being the only British journalist to interview the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

“His people were pretty thuggish but he was very business-like,” says McDonald, recalling the half a dozen people from Hussein’s inner office who insisted on sitting in on the interview. “They were rather a nuisance and I was really at the end of my tether. For the first time I was losing my rag, which I promised not to do because I knew they would do everything to make you react in that way.”

He finally turned around to ask one of them why they thought it was necessary to be there. “Rather interestingly he said to me, ‘You don’t understand what’s going on here, do you? We never ever see him [Hussein] asked questions and be made to answer’.

“I thought to myself – those pictures when we saw him with the guys with the caps and the ugly uniform – ‘He [Hussein] talks and they don’t say no. If they do, one of his sons would have their heads off or shoot them.’ No dissent was tolerated.”

He’s never watched the interview. “Frightfully boring,” he says with a shrug of the shoulders. “Great that we got it but what I learned about Iraq and what I observed about the regime was much more interesting.”

McDonald’s now forging a career as a documentary presenter. “When I visited countries [before], we went because there was bad news. We were traders in bad news, we lived on bad news, we thrived on it. So to do something celebratory, that’s lovely.”

• Trevor McDonald’s Queen and Country starts Sunday 13 May at 7pm on the History Channel.