“SLOWING July 10 2022 DOWN? HOW DARE YOU” Judi Dench: still searching for perfection at 87 10.07.2022 5 Matt Rudd My 1983 guide to help kids beat summer boredom 38 6 Relative Values The Labour MP Emily Thornberry and her brother on their “bastard” father 40 8 Electric nightmares Adam Kay’s nail-biting year driving a Jaguar I-Pace 16 COVER: Judi Dench at 87 30 Why self-doubt and waning eyesight won’t slow her down. By Jonathan Dean 24 Baby blues Marianne Levy on the bewildering reality of becoming a mum 30 The real Zelensky How the Ukrainian president went from TV funnyman to war leader, by Peter Conradi 38 The Dogfather Graeme Hall on how to train your dog to bark less 40 Food and drink Candice Brown’s seasonal berry-laden desserts; Marina O’Loughlin on the Syrian chef spicing up Soho; and Will Lyons’s riesling stars 49 Books to Live By Mariella Frostrup gives a reader the courage to embark on a man-free life 50 Driving 24 Nick Rufford reviews the Volkswagen Multivan — CLIFT part camper van, part SUV ARLIE CH 58 A Life in the Day 8 GES, EPA, REX, Brleeafvrte bhaaelrsra wm Ahamyrii etsahl,l e Lb’sae dtdeym Bplaocrka,r ily A M GETTY I GE: HIS PA UST. T G U A ARK SELIGER /  ©PNue Tbwilmisspheaesp dNe aersnw dLst pldiac, pe1e nLrsosen dLdt bdoy,n 2 TB0irm2id2eg.s e 16 COVER: M S5Li0tvr0eere0pt),o. LoPorl.in nNdtoeotdn t boSy Eb 1Pe 9r isGnooFldv (i 0ss e2Up0Ka 7 rL7at8tde2,l y M A T T R U D D My 1983 guide to help today’s kids beat summer boredom S ummer is here, hooray for summer. The Knock down ginger school holidays approach, hooray, but wait Time occupied: a few minutes (but can be combined for it, wait for it, here it comes … “I’m bored.” with cycling around the block) “Dad, I’m bored,” says Child C because The thrill, almost on a par with that time you ate a shrimp he has had nothing to do for four minutes. in the Woolworths pic’n’mix when no one was looking. “Bored? You don’t know the meaning of Knock, run, hide, repeat. Warning: risk of extra piano the word. When I was your age, do you know practice when Mrs Hubbard at No 18 turns supergrass. how many television channels we had?” “Two, you’ve told me this story. And it’s Plastic figurines boring.” Time occupied: four to six hours “Well, no, four actually. Four channels.” Save pocket money for six straight months and buy “Doesn’t sound too bad.” Luke Skywalker and two Ewoks. Try not to be upset “It was too bad because none of those channels were that James Anderson has already got two speeder bikes for children. There was a show where they made cutlery and the Millennium Falcon. Find some tree roots and trays out of cereal packets (a week I’ll never get back) act out the Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi. and there was a show about delinquent school kids that we weren’t allowed to watch. And even when there was Forts something on, you had to be there to watch it because Time occupied: limitless we didn’t get a video recorder until the late Eighties, In lieu of a £150,000 treehouse, find some sheets and and even then we weren’t allowed to tape over Bergerac. build a fort that your little sister isn’t allowed in unless And every tape was full of Bergerac. Then there was she knows the password. Get shouted at for not telling Wimbledon: the most painful fortnight of the year. your sister the password. Cycle around the block. Because back then, young man, we were all one-screen Variation: put the sheets in a pile and then burrow into families. Mum, Dad, can I watch Fraggle Rock? No, them like a hamster. Take snacks, also like a hamster. it’s the mixed doubles and John Lloyd and Wendy Turnbull might go through to the third round. Can The cassette recorder I watch it on demand later? No, because on demand Time occupied: unlimited hasn’t been invented. Like that, for 12 days straight.” Record all your favourite songs off the radio, taking So here is my 1983 anti-boredom guide to care to stop recording before the DJ speaks. Play those summer for your own screen-addled 2022 progeny. songs while cycling around the block, imagining a Kill the wi-fi, hide the Xbox and let the spoilt little scenario where you are a criminal being chased by critters’ imaginations run free … the police for copyright infringement. Cycle around the block The mud pie Time occupied: days and days … and days Time occupied: two to three hours First, check if Chris Nicholson at No 14 is in but he Get some mud, 20g of woodlice and worms to taste. won’t be because he’s been forced into that day camp Make pie. Tell your little sister it tastes delicious. again. Then cycle around the block. Cycle around it Get shouted at. Cycle around the block. again. Spend an hour imagining what it will be like next MY year, when you might be allowed to cross the big road The video game ALA and cycle around the next block along. Then cycle Time occupied: 30 minutes NE. around the block again. With luck or dehydration you Yes, we had video games. Or rather a video game. Bat GAZI might find yourself conjuring up whole adventures. and ball on a console the size of a coffee table. You A DAY TIMES M Ythoeu r’ruen b! eTihneg Rchuassseiadn bsy a Arei rc Womoilnf!g Y. Touh’aret othnee Ast-iTlle wamor okns. cToHonmotruoorrlrs oo ownfe ’ps b oWateto;n rttlhdiae wl cfiuoznmar lpdimuryti,et cer,od tn httorro ojuulssg tth h3 se0o ommthiene suro toretns oe .f N OR THE SU Get some mud, 20g woodlice, ac dyacyl eb aercoauunsed “ tyhoeu brl eoyceks” .will go square — go and CLIFT F worms to taste. Make pie. “No thanks,” says Child C. “I’ll just walk the HARLIE Tell your sister it’s delicious d@omg.”a Attnrudd tdhat is mission accomplished n C The Sunday Times Magazine • 5 R E L A T I V E V A L U E S Emily and James Thornberry The Labour MP and her brother, who works at the Refugee Council, on their grim childhood Emily made shadow attorney general in November]. However, We went through a pretty horrible time as kids — I felt very comfortable schlepping up and down the uniquely horrible, we thought back then. It probably country with my wig visiting murderers and drug wasn’t unique, but it made us feel different. I don’t dealers. The turning point was meeting my husband remember things ever being right. [the High Court judge Sir Christopher Nugee] when I Our dad, Cedric, was an international lawyer who was 22. He loved me for who I was and he stabilised me. worked for the UN. I have no memories of him being Jim has had lots of girlfriends and lived all over the around, only the hard stuff after he left. He had an affair world. During the Nineties our house in Islington was with a woman who lived near us in Guildford and he his base. I remember picking him up from the airport went off to Norway with her [when Emily was seven]. after he’d broken his neck in a car accident in Burundi. The mortgage wasn’t paid, so the bailiffs came, but He was in a brace and swigging from a whisky bottle at it was losing the cats that upset me most. My mum, 9am; I felt terribly bourgeois because although I was Sallie, said, “We can’t cope with them,” and they were proud of him, I really minded that he was dropping euthanased. It shows what a state she was in. She was cigarette ash all over my best coat. completely devastated and very, very angry. Once we’d We’ve always been close but Mum and Dad’s deaths been chucked out and moved to a council house in [in 2008 and 2014 respectively] messed us all up again town, Dad started paying the mortgage and moved — pulling us apart then pushing us together. Grief back into the house with the girlfriend and a new baby. about my dad was particularly complex. I had plenty of There’s a photograph of us three kids, just after the opportunities to challenge him but he had dementia split — our younger brother, Ben, and I look miserable, towards the end and I thought, what’s the point? but Jim’s face is particularly frightening. His eyes have I wouldn’t be the person I am today without that chaotic, disappeared into his head and he’s very withdrawn. We crazy background. But my brothers remain furious. were quite disturbed children, real tearaways and our I worry about Jim constantly. I just want to be there behaviour was very bad at school — none of us passed when he needs me and to love him. He is a really lovely our 11-plus. But whereas I was an extrovert little thing bloke, genuinely too kind-hearted for this earth. with knotty hair and second-hand clothes, Jim kept a lot of what he felt bottled up inside. All my distress was for my mother, but I felt powerless “Mum worried she couldn’t afford to because I was so young. We lived on benefits until we keep us. I remember her saying we started school and she could go back to work as a teacher. I remember wearing coats in the house, Mum might go to children’s homes” trying to get the fire going with coal dust. Dad visited but he was clearly bored by us. When we were teenagers he took us to Africa because he had a girlfriend who wanted to meet us, which was mind-blowing because I’d never been further than Boulogne. He’d always give us the same lecture: “What are you doing with your life? Sort yourself out.” Then he wouldn’t talk to us for weeks. It’s no coincidence that Africa was the first place Jim worked as an aid worker: he was one of the first westerners into Rwanda after the genocide. He was in the Congo at the start of a bloody revolution. I remember him ringing on a satellite phone from under a mattress while his hotel was being shelled. Later he was shot at while trying to bury the dead. This sense of service and duty comes from our mum [who became a Labour councillor and served as mayor of Guildford in 2000-01] but also from Dad; he may have been an old bastard and James, 59, a shocking father but he always stepped up professionally. and Emily, 61, By the time I’d got through this childhood I was at the Houses of extremely chippy. But I also had empathy. There weren’t Parliament. Right: many women criminal barristers around [Emily was together in 1965 6 • The Sunday Times Magazine P O R T R A I T B Y D A V I D V I N T I N E R James S T R A N G E I became quite introverted and, being a middle child, My earliest memory is of sitting in a high chair in the was desperate to please people. I was always the H A B I T S kitchen with Mum and Dad screaming at each other, peacekeeper. Emily was an extrovert. She’d break rules watching a piece of plaster fall from the ceiling. That and test boundaries, never respecting authority. She scene — arguing, noise, a sense of things falling apart Emily on James was bullied badly at school and I think she was just — framed the way our personalities developed. If you invite him angry. I wasn’t able to deal with that level of aggression I remember Mum telling me that she and Dad had for dinner he and rejection, so Mum moved me to a different school. split up, and pretending Dad was still with us, not won’t just wash Mum worked all day, most evenings and often ran because I missed him but because I didn’t want to be up — he’ll clean youth clubs at weekends — dealing with teenage different. But with Emily there was a willingness to be the kitchen. rebellion on top of that was just too much for her. She emotionally open and honest — she’d lie in bed and The last time he kicked Emily out when she was 15. She drove her to whisper her thoughts and fears. When I was about six came he swept Dad’s place in London three weeks before her O-levels Mum told us she couldn’t afford to keep us. I remember the garden too. and left her. When Emily was 17 Dad went to New York her saying we might not go to the same children’s No one asked, for a weekend and didn’t come back. home. I was so bewildered and upset. I didn’t know he just did it I think there was a conscious realisation that leading how to inhabit such an emotion. a quiet, normal life was never going to be enough. We Mum was in her twenties with three young children, James on Emily both feel that you can only make an exceptional life if but she was bloody-minded and determined and that’s Her persistent you channel yourself into good causes, otherwise you where we get our resilience from. Later we became smoking lose self-respect. Having said that, we recognise that unafraid of exploring the world. Dad took us overseas, the paths we’ve taken are almost predetermined, but his inability to be a father meant he didn’t look after forged from our past experiences. Emily was always a us, so we learnt to fend for ourselves. My father was a politician in that she’s argumentative and never wrong shit. One of the most egocentric and entitled men I’ve — she’s also pretty theatrical, so she’s in her element n ever come across. He just didn’t have the emotional depth to get past his own self-centredness. Interviews by Caroline Scott The Sunday Times Magazine • 7 8 • The Sunday Times Magazine Adam Kay: my electric car hell The bestselling author of This Is Going to Hurt thought he’d found a pain-free way to help save the planet. No such luck ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIL HACKETT The Sunday Times Magazine • 9