2 1GT Monday July 20 2020 | the times

times

your boss and you have to make a

choice,’ I would choose this over and

above anything else.”

I wonder, though, if the fame of one

role is a burden on the other. After a

couple of decades as a regular “fill-in”

presenter on the big news slots, as well

as high-profile reporting on Panorama

and a stint on Strictly Come Dancing, is

there a chance a child will be surprised

to be left alone with the woman off the

telly? She hopes her face-recognition

doesn’t reach the primary school set.

It’s not like, and let’s not pause too

long to imagine this, being faced with

Piers Morgan in a therapeutic setting.

“I think I will be working with

children who wouldn’t know what

other work I do. I’m just Kate and I’m

a Place2Be therapist,” Silverton says.

One of the main inspirations for

following multiple passions has been

her father. Much is made of how the

upper echelons of the BBC may be as

difficult to reach for the working

classes as for women or ethnic

minorities. Yet Silverton was the first

in her family to go to university; her

father was primarily a black cab driver

and trucker.

“I don’t come from privilege, clearly,

but what I did have was this: my dad

and I were really close. He would go

off to Germany in his lorry and I

would sleep in the cab. He’d put a

German tape on so that we learnt

German while we were doing it. He

was really into pistol shooting at one

point, and again, I would go with him

and learn how to hold a magnum.”

He eventually trained as a

hypnotherapist. “For him it was

always: don’t be afraid to take risks, be

curious.” That mantra failed Silverton

when she emerged from university.

Before then she was one of the boldest

of her peers; after school she spent two

years travelling the world, mostly solo.

She lived on a kibbutz in Israel aged 17,

got tear-gassed in Bethlehem, went

into the Sinai desert and lived with

the Bedouin, all the time making diary

recordings on a Dictaphone. She

wanted to be a journalist.

“For some unknown reason, actually

it was fear of failure, I went into

corporate finance. I was pants at it,”

she says.

That changed when a close friend

became seriously ill with cancer at

the age of 26. She would visit him in

hospital after work.

“I’d walk in with my big shoulder

pads and bigger hair. He’d be hooked

up to his treatments. One night he

C

ome this September

Kate Silverton will

be working by night

as a BBC news

presenter, relaying

the latest anxiety

about Covid-19,

Brexit and recession,

while by day she will be working as

a counsellor, bearing witness to a

child’s worries. By night providing

the ammunition for worry, by day

listening and examining collateral

damage. One of the BBC’s most

recognised news presenters has

spent years training so she can flip

from broadcasting to millions to

hearing experiences, in private, as a

qualified therapist in primary schools.

Has a BBC news presenter ever lived

such a dual life?

“This is a really abnormal time,”

Silverton says on a video call from her

London home. “But together we can

come out a bit stronger. I don’t know

yet what that’s going to look like. All I

know is I’m going to be in a classroom

with a kid, I’m going to sit there and

have a tough, but heavenly day,

knowing the obstacles, hoping I’ve

made a bit of a difference to them.”

There is a bit of jiggery-pokery to

get her screen working; her husband,

Mike Heron, a former Royal Marine

commando, is called in to save her.

They met when Silverton was in her

thirties, when she took his hostage

training course before heading to Iraq.

He had Silverton hooded, bound and

thrown in the back of a Land Rover.

The hostage is still very taken.

Everyone needs a Mike, I say as he

finally succeeds, and Silverton replies:

“They really do.” Then he goes off to

take command of their two children,

aged eight and six.

Silverton is on the brink of 50, a

time when many choose a second

act. The strangeness of balancing

an intense frontline job with a high-

profile public role doesn’t register

with her — she says it feels “natural”.

“I need to see the front line,”

she says. “I’ve always been really

passionate about that. If I go to Iraq

or Afghanistan, I don’t just want to

stay on the base. I want to go out and

foot-patrol. I want to see things for

myself as they are. This is now my

life’s work,” she says of her new job

as a child counsellor.

She has trained for the past two

years with the charity Place2Be, of

which the Duchess of Cambridge

is a patron. In a month Silverton

will qualify as a child counsellor

and begin working in schools. Two

more years of working and training

will lead to her qualification as a

child psychotherapist. She will switch

between her part-time broadcast job

and her higher priority, “the intimacy

of being in a counselling room with

a child that needs help”.

“It’s not a ‘nice to have’,” Silverton

says. “If you said to me today, ‘I’m

DAVID BECKHAM/INSTAGRAM

Kevin Maher

Y

ou’ve heard of “Zoom

fatigue” (tiredness

after too many

Zoom meetings).

You definitely know

some “sourdough

bores” (mostly men

banging on about

how to maintain the perfect starter).

Now let me introduce you to the

latest cutesy phenomenon to emerge

from the evolving world of lockdown

— “cottagecore’’. Yes, cottagecore.

It’s a neologistic term that describes

a romantic rural existence of golden

sunsets, rolling wheat fields,

home-baked goods and the soulful

warmth of cosy country hearth.

Cottagecore is an aesthetic and

a dream lifestyle that has become

extremely covetable during the

claustrophobic limitations of

lockdown and has been promoted

on social media by celebrities such

as David Beckham and Harry

Styles. Beckham recently posted a

quintessential cottagecore snap on

Instagram, featuring the former

footballer in shaggy green knitwear,

thoughtfully posed in a heavenly

bucolic setting, with cloth cap and

walking stick in hand, as if he’d just

returned from rescuing a lost ewe or

tending to some broken fence posts

“Victowweeeaaaaa! I can’t find

my hammah!”).

Cottagecore, in short, is an

advertisement for the rejuvenating

properties of rural life. It promises

bliss, simplicity and the quiet

satisfaction of a return to simpler

ways. Cottagecore, alas, is a lie.

And I should know. I have lived in

four country cottages in Scotland, one

in Somerset, and one in Devon. And

despite the initial thrill of difference

and the pledge of purity that they

seemed to offer the jaded city dweller,

each experience ended up being, in the

nicest possible way, well, a bit shit.

It was the small things at first. Like

having the “western saloon” feeling

every time you walk into a bar (you

know. The pianist stops playing, the

chatter ceases, a lone gambling chip

falls to the floor). Like half-eyed

locals presuming that you’re loaded

with cash just because you’ve come

from London, even though you’re

struggling to pay the rent on your

freezing stonewall cottage with the

money you get from the DVD

The prince

and the

wo ofer

Poor Prince Harry.

It seems that Meghan

Markle’s beloved

labrador-shepherd

mix, Bogart, has

allegedly taken such

a dislike to the prince

that he has been left

behind in Canada

(Bogart, that is, not

Harry). He is unable

to join the couple in

their Los Angeles

lockdown retreat.

I have the opposite

problem with my dog.

Instead of rejecting

new visitors, she’s

instantly over-friendly.

She demands a good

mutually respectful and

entirely natural sniff

of whoever she meets.

At her height,

however (she’s a

big girl), this mostly

translates as

unimpeded and

vigorously intimate

access to front and

back bottoms —

she’s not fussy, and

is generally strong

enough to gain access

to both from either

side (it’s quite the

donkey ride).

This is normally

tolerable for most

visitors, who simply

bat her away with

good-natured affection

or else endure it

silently, perhaps

grateful for the

attention. Occasionally,

though, with more

formal encounters,

it can create social

tension. I still haven’t

found a polite way

to say: “You should

probably cover your

crotch now!”

This is my

Star Wars

moment

It’s been exhausting,

year after year,

defending my decision

to hang on to the fancy

dress Darth Vader

helmet (“But, darling,

you’re never going to

wear it again, are

you?”). Maybe it was

a premonition, or a

refusal to put away

childish things, but

now, finally, it seems

my hunch was right.

Authorities in

Switzerland have

announced that

full-face plastic visors

are not enough to

protect the wearers

from Covid-19 and must

be used in conjunction

with high-spec mouth

and nose coverings.

And so, obviously,

you know what I’m

thinking? Time to bring

down old dusty Darth

and give him a spin at

the local Spar. I won’t

have to touch the

shopping either. I can

just use the force.

reviews that you’re doing, via post, for

the magazine that no one buys.

Or like having to endure the Spanish

Inquisition every time you want to

partake in the most cursory of retail

experiences. I went to a butcher, for

instance, in Somerset once (and

I mean once only) and he wouldn’t

serve me unless I told him the exact

whereabouts of the house that I was

renting and from whom. And he did

all this with a smile, as if to say: “These

are just our ways round these parts, so

deal with it!” I did, and got my meat

from Sainsbury’s instead.

Then there was the big stuff too.

I used to start my days in Scotland

with a jog along the coastline of the

Moray Firth. It was often spectacular.

Like running alone through a magical

deserted dreamscape. But after 14

months it became intolerable. Just

oppressively samey, a cold, isolating

space devoid of humanity. It was like

being shanghaied on Mars.

I had several other ultimately failed

cottagecore experiences before I faced

the inevitable and re-embraced city

life — not for the buildings, the traffic

and the chaos, but for the deeply felt

friendships and the intimate personal

connections. Plus the DVD reviewing

was getting tiresome, I needed a real

job and had learnt the hard way that

bucolic havens were, for me anyway,

dead ends. Cottagecore was, and

remains, a myth.

As a postscript, I should add that

I’ve spent lockdown in a cottage in

rural Gloucestershire. And it has been

a profound and nurturing revelation.

You see? You can’t hate ’em all.

My double life:

The BBC’s Kate Silverton has reported

from war zones. Now she’s studying

psychotherapy ready for a new front

line: schools. By Helen Rumbelow

If I had to make

a choice I would

choose this over

anything else

Beckham can keep his

cottagecore. The simple

life is harder than it looks

David Beckham in country mode