Ann Clwyd: 'She was as often human, funny and warm as she was indignant'

One of the many times when I interviewed Ann Clwyd over the years was for a radio item and it was proving difficult to find a suitable time for both of us.In the end we agreed to a phone interview and she arranged for me to call her at her hairdressers in Aberdare so that I could record her answering my questions while she sat under the overhead hair dryer.Broadcast journalists often called her demanding because she refused to wear an earpiece when doing “down the line” interviews from a newsroom camera.However that came from her experience: she knew that what we call “talkback” could sometimes be difficult to hear, particularly when using a sometimes well-used earpiece. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t disadvantaged by not hearing the questions properly.

Both of the above points show that while she went out of her way to help journalists out, she was rightly unafraid to say what she needed to happen to make it work.Even though she was sometimes working with senior political leaders such as Tony Blair over Iraq and Jeremy Hunt over NHS complaints, her years as a backbench rebel meant that she still acted as her own press officer, phoning or, latterly, texting when she wanted to make a point, get some answers or get some coverage for an issue that she thought needed highlighting.So when she was on the receiving end of a delay to her Covid vaccination in the winter of 2020/2021 she didn’t just complain about it, she found out how many others were experiencing the same, researched with GPs and health officials and then texted me and other journalists to highlight it, carrying out Zoom interviews to hammer home her message.When she finally got the vaccination, her text couldn’t be any more human: “Yippee getting my jab on Sat at 9am!”But then she was as often human, funny and warm as she was indignant or in campaigning mode.When I interviewed her at home in 2017 we spent as much time talking about her cats as we did her just-published memoirs.In my own experience of knowing her, the most impressive thing that she did outside of politics was the way that she helped a mutual friend, the late BBC Wales journalist John Stevenson.

When I first knew John it was in his role as a very experienced political journalist, based in Westminster and with a deep knowledge of Welsh politics.What I didn’t know was that years before then he had been homeless and struggled with alcoholism, something he spoke about in a powerful TV documentary.It was Ann Clwyd who’d helped him clean up, gave him a job as a researcher and continued helping him right up to the end of his life.He never forgot what she did for him and it should be something that she is remembered for too.

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