Somewhere at the bottom of the Fleet Street food chain is the hapless junior reporter known as the ‘milk bottle’. So-called because most of their time is spent hanging around on doorsteps, seeking comment from people who almost never want to talk.
It is one of journalism’s lower art forms, requiring the patience of a stalker and the persistence of a chugger – and if I sound sniffy, that’s because I put in plenty time as a ‘milk-bottle’ myself in my early career in the 1990s.
The nearest I ever got an interview was Liam Gallagher telling me to fuck off. Several minor royals called the police. Someone in Tessa Jowell’s house – they never did answer the door – called Downing Street. A few threw punches.
It was with a certain weariness, therefore, that during one late shift in 1997, I was sent to doorstep Ann Widdecombe at her flat in Kennington, south London. It was at the height of her falling out with former Home Secretary Michael Howard, a few days after she’d said there was ‘something of the night’ about him. And I feared she’d think there was something of the night about me, given that I turned up on her door after dark.
This, it should be remembered, was not the cuddly Widdecombe of the Celebrity Big Brother and Strictly years, but the old-school Widdecombe – the stern, spinsterly professional politician, not known for suffering fools easily. Especially fools who banged on her door late at night asking questions.
