Robert Peston - Bye

Episode 434,   May 05, 2012, 09:33 AM

This is why radio is great.

Everybody knows if you are on the TV. You're surrounded by clipboards and lights with a funky white van parked outside. But one can be on the radio live 'in quality' within seconds from a magnolia back bedroom at the flick of a switch. As Robert Peston discovered live on 5Live in May 2012, that domestic accessibility can have its perils too.

There he was, chatting away live to Nicky Campbell when his wife, Sian, prepared to leave the house with a cheery 'bye'. The 'pro' that he is, Robert continued. His wife was having none of it. When your wife shouts 'bye', you bloody well respond. She shouted again with more persistence. And, as the Radio Times would say, with hiliarious results.

The clip is all the more poignant when one considers that Sian died just four months later. Robert suggests, in the Radio Times, that she 'never despaired or resorted to self pity'. Although we merely hear two 'goodbyes' shouted up the stairs here, one calm, the other one with that insistent 'erm, answer me, Robert!' tone which we all recognise, it speaks volumes.