Kirsty Wark
Here’s something you might not know about Kirsty Wark, the tenacious and slightly terrifying Newsnight presenter: she has a loud, joyous laugh.
We don’t get to hear it much on BBC Two’s current affairs show, but here she is, arriving at a London hotel in a waft of Chanel No. 19, laughing gleefully because a lorry driver has just told her to eff off.
All she’d done was to silently ask him, via the wiggle of her wrist, to turn off his idling engine. But it’s doubtful he realised who she was, as Kirsty – petite, wet-haired and fresh-faced – looks nothing like the groomed interrogator we see on screen.
‘People don’t recognise me in the street, but they often recognise my voice,’ says the 64-year-old in her deep Scottish burr. ‘They look at me and go “Really?” because I’m never wearing make-up. I’m not exactly coiffed when I go out.’
In her 26 years at Newsnight and a decade hosting its much-missed arts spin-off, Newsnight Review, Kirsty has grilled everyone from Madonna to Harold Pinter, with many a politician – ‘essentially good people doing a tough job’ – in between.
But these days it’s writing that takes up much of her time, and her second novel, The House by the Loch, is out this week. A sweeping, atmospheric saga about three generations of a likeable family and the ramifications of a tragedy, it’s as sure-footed and downright readable as you’d expect from someone who’s been interviewing authors for so long.
‘The overriding theme is how families remake themselves,’ says Kirsty. ‘Your life can take unexpected twists and turns, and out of that can come good things. It’s endlessly fascinating to me, how things get broken but can be mended.’
Kirsty herself is no stranger to life’s unpredictability. Born in Dumfries, the daughter of a lawyer and a schoolteacher, she was a bookish child who spent all her pocket money on paperbacks, and ‘kind of wanted to go into journalism somehow.’
After Edinburgh University she won a place on the BBC’s graduate entry scheme, working as a radio researcher before moving into television production. One momentous day the lighting supervisor asked her to sit on set so that he could make adjustments, and Kirsty ended up doing a spoof interview. ‘It was quite fun, and I had this moment of “Why don’t you just do this?” And it set me on a different path.’
Stepping in front of the camera had its challenges, not least in 1988 when the BBC’s Christmas party was interrupted by news of a plane crash in Lockerbie. Throwing her coat over her party dress, she rushed to the scene.
‘Lockerbie was so shocking,’ she recalls. ‘It was eerily quiet, and there were just things on the street, like the odd bag from the flight, but you couldn’t see anything on the hill – you weren’t allowed up there.’
It was on the hill that the wreckage of the plane and its passengers lay, ‘and the things that the wonderful police officers and soldiers saw were just horrific. What I think now is, if there had been social media, would somebody have snuck onto that hill? This is the problem. Social media is fantastic for speed, but we’ve just got to be mindful of the impact it has on people.’
Two years later, Kirsty raised appreciative eyebrows with her half-hour cross examination of Margaret Thatcher, which she began with Mrs Merton-esque bluntness: ‘Prime Minister, why are you so[ITALICS] unpopular in Scotland?’
She laughs at the memory. ‘There was adrenalin, but it wasn’t nerve-wracking because I was prepared. The main thing was I had just found out I was pregnant, and I thought “This woman is not going to put me in a tense situation”.
‘She was furious afterwards. She wagged her finger at me and said “You interrupted me!” Number 10 had tried to get the interview stopped beforehand because she didn’t like being interviewed by women, and I will be eternally grateful to the BBC who said no, you don’t get to dictate who does it.’
When she joined Newsnight in 1993, it was a male-dominated world. Today all three lead presenters are female, but she doesn’t think it’s a big deal. ‘It just happened that way, and why not? It’s funny because it’s still commented upon. Cressida Dick, astronauts, Teresa May – why is it a thing? We don’t make it a thing!’
One ‘thing’ they do have to put up with is accusations of bias, ironically from both sides of the spectrum, but Kirsty is dismissive. ‘It’s so interesting, especially when you see this on Twitter, how people read interviews in completely different ways. I absolutely refute any notion of bias on Newsnight whatsoever.’
In spite of her London-based job, Kirsty lives in Glasgow and does much of her writing on the train during her lengthy commute. ‘I’m very rooted in Scotland. I honestly heave a sigh of relief when I see hills – not that I’m planning on climbing one. Obviously it’s tiring coming up and down, but it’s afforded me the time to write.’
And it’s time well spent. The House by the Loch follows her bestselling 2014 debut, The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle, and a new novel is underway. But Kirsty has no plans to leave Newsnight. ‘Every day is different, and it’s a great place to be,’ she says. ‘What I love is that it’s a team effort. That’s what I worried about when I started writing books: how would I feel about being on my own?
‘But actually I go to a completely different space when I’m writing, and I find it incredibly intense and almost exhilarating to be in that moment. You want your readers to be engaged, obviously, but you’re writing for yourself because you’ve got a story you’re desperate to get out. It’s something I really feel I have to do.’
:: The House by the Loch by Kirsty Wark (Two Roads, £16.99) is out now.
Wark of life
Kirsty has been married to TV producer Alan Clements for 30 years. Her daughter Caitlin, 28, is a journalist and TV researcher and her son James, 27, is a New York-based actor.
She’s an accomplished cook, and narrowly lost in the final of Celebrity MasterChef 2011 to rugby player Phil Vickery after Gregg Wallace described her calves’ liver as ‘furry’.
Her dress sense is sometimes mocked on Twitter, but Kirsty doesn’t mind (‘Some of it is very funny, actually’). She once wore a ruched Vivienne Westwood skirt, ‘and we were just about to go on air when the sound supervisor said “Kirsty’s got her skirt caught in her pants!” And I said “Er, actually no, it’s the style...”’
Her interview wishlist includes New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern: ‘She is what a true leader is. And I’d like to have a really truthful interview with Hilary Clinton.’
An edited version of this interview appeared in Waitrose Weekend on June 13th 2019. (c) Waitrose