John Sargeant - Give Me Ten Seconds

Reviewed by Maggie Perkovic on 27th November 2008
John Sargeant worked for ITN as political editor and before that spent 30yrs at the BBC coal face. He is widely respected by both the denizens of the Houses of Parliament and fellow journalists. This is the story of his life so far, from his rather curious childhood and somewhat eccentric parents to his appearance on comedy show written by Alan Bennett, to his early years in journalism and his long career at the BBC.
His maternal grandfather lived in Odessa on the Black Sea, named so it was said after the British hero Nelson and was said to be a distant relative of Captain Cook, thus his name; Horatio William Cook, while distinctly un-Russian was from his grandfather who had come from Lincoln in the second half of the 19th century to set up business in Russia importing farm machinery from England.
John was used to his grandmother and mother conversing in Russian together with his English father who enjoyed learning as many different and difficult languages as he could.
Not being a political animal as such I didn’t expect to enjoy this book but it is written humorously and wittily and describes several incidents in his life which we all saw (Mrs Thatcher handbagging him in Paris) with a deprecating manner which is totally endearing. I feel this man is someone who is able to laugh at the strange and somewhat bizarre world of politics and also a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously. I would recommend this to someone who is interested in politics but who also likes to laugh at the eccentricities of the human race.