FEATURE:
Our Loz
PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Woffinden for The Telegraph
Celebrating the Wonderful Lauren Laverne
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THERE is no timely…
PHOTO CREDIT: Sophia Spring for The Times
reason why I am writing about Lauren Laverne. The host of the BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show, and the iconic Desert Island Discs, she is someone who I listen to a lot. I think I want to discuss her because, since the pandemic started in 2020, she has been an invaluable, trusted and hugely warm presence on the airwaves. I think there should be more interviews with her. A fascinating broadcaster who is a brilliant award show host (I understand she will host next year’s Ivor Novello awards), her versatility and undeniably huge talent has not been fully recognised I don’t think! I have said before how she deserves an OBE or MBE. Whether she would accept it or not, I am not sure. She is deserving of accolades and high honour. I think that, based on her broadcasting alone, she is someone hugely influential and important. Her BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show keeps bringing in new listeners. I am not surprised. I think I first started listening to her on BBC Radio 6 Music in 2016. That was a year when we lost huge musicians like David Bowie and Prince. During those times, she was a source of comfort and stability. I grew to love her mixture of warmth, humour and accessibility.
Down to earth and super-cool, compassionate, and knowledgeable like no other broadcaster I know, she is someone who has a great ear for the best new music, tied to an encyclopaedic understanding and wide scope of older music. I want to bring in a couple of interviews with Laverne. The first one is from The Guardian from 2016. In addition to her duties on BBC Radio 6 Music – this was before she took over on Desert Island Discs -, she was also presenting Late Night Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4:
“Laverne’s grandfathers (the other was a miner) often figure in her interviews. So it seems reasonable to assume that she values her working-class heritage. Laverne’s father, like her mother, was from a large family, one of six. But both parents – “60s grammar-school kids, that classic working-class thing” – studied hard and had university jobs so that life for Laverne, growing up in Barnes in Sunderland, was comfortable.
“It was a house full of music and books and ideas that were not that usual where I was. There was always a lot of – we might call it alternative culture now,” she says. “We were this funny little middle-class outpost of a big working-class family, and that was a really lovely place to be. Because we had all the advantages of being middle class, but also had a real sense of place in history and culture that connected back to where we were from.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Lee/The Guardian
Does she worry that her own children will be further removed from those origins? “Well, you know, they’re part of my family too, and they’re part of their own extended family and they have their own relationship with that, with my parents, my cousins, the place that I’m from,” she says. She’s sitting in a swivel chair, spinning from side to side as she thinks. “They’ve been on the beach that The Walrus and the Carpenter was written about!” The question was really an economic one, to which Lewis Carroll – a passion she got from her father – is an unexpected answer. I wonder if she worries about the privileges her children enjoy compared with the life of her grandfathers – does she sometimes feel the need to adjust their perspective?
“What? When we’re throwing another 50 on the fire?” she exclaims.
“My dad said a thing to me the other week that is really interesting. He said, you don’t teach kids the value of money, you teach them the value of people. And for me, that’s what it comes down to. What is a pound? What is a gold bar worth? It’s actually more about how you treat people, so that’s what I try to do.”
In many ways, another radio show is the last thing Laverne needs. She already hosts every weekday on 6 Music, she does voiceover for a children’s show, fills in time with all manner of documentaries and prize-presenting and live events – the Mercury, the Turner, the Baftas, Glastonbury. She has written a teen novel. When she counts her BBC radio stations – “I’m not sure about 4 Extra, but certainly 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, I’ve hosted on” – she runs out of fingers. Somewhere in there, she finds time to call her mother “several times a day”.
I also wanted to write this feature, as I think that the rest of this year and 2023 will be among the most successful for Laverne. Her breakfast show will continue to grow in popularity, but I think there are great opportunities for outside of that. At the moment, I am not sure whether she has any room on her plate for many new projects! I think that there are radio documentaries, podcast appearances and T.V. shows that would benefit from her incredible locker of talent and magnetism. Not to say her radio shows are dominating her time, but I feel there is a lot in front of her that may mean her scaling back. I am going to wrap up in a minute but, beforehand, I want to bring in a more recent interview from The Guardian. As I have said before, there are not that many interviews with her. She is always compelling when being interviewed. She is very relatable and grounded as a person but, having had the career she has already, there is almost an element of the superhuman too:
“What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Unkindness, meanness. People who could make the world better and choose to make it worse.
Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?
A caravan. I was brought up going on caravan holidays – but we quickly realised that a double-axle caravan was too much of a commitment and sold it.
Describe yourself in three words
Hopeful, curious and thoughtful, in the sense that I am always thinking about things.
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If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
The concept of polite disagreement.
What makes you unhappy?
I find it very difficult when the people I care about are unhappy.
Who would play you in the film of your life?
Evanna Lynch who plays Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films.
What was the last lie that you told?
Oh, what a lovely hat.
What is your most unappealing habit?
I have a tendency to take on a bit too much and then complain about it in my head afterwards.
What scares you about getting older?
Losing people”.
There is a lot to love about Lauren Laverne. She is someone who brings her listeners in and embraces them. Hugely funny, charming and popular, at forty-four, we are going to hear her on the air for decades more. I would love to see her do more T.V. and side projects. She is such a varied and remarkable person who can grab your attention and keep you hooked with everything she does. I think there is an autobiography or another novel in her (her debut novel came out a while ago now). Maybe we might see her launch a new T.V. music series or a great documentary. One of the big reasons why so many people got through lockdown with positive spirits, Laverne is one of our most important broadcasters. It is her positivity and obvious passion that radiates through! I know she is dedicated to BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio 4 but, in years to come, maybe she will move on. She has helped cultivate a family at BBC Radio 6 Music. She genuinely has that closeness and love for her listeners. An invaluable guide, source of new music and comforting shoulder, it is high time Lauren Laverne is awarded and rewarded for her years of broadcasting excellence – whatever form that takes on. We are going to share one of Sunderland’s (the city where she was born) proud daughters’ essential company…
PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian
FOR many years more.