The Peter Jay I knew: the BBC’s aloof, brilliant economics editor

I was the junior researcher, and he was the living legend. When I started working at the BBC on the Money Programme, I was assigned to work with Peter Jay, who was presenting various documentaries, and I had never previously met anyone quite so aloof. I had no idea if he even knew my name, and it was many months before I had evidence that he did. But in the end, my entire career at the BBC, ultimately as economics correspondent appointed by him, was interwoven with his, and I developed a certain fondness.

Peter always had an otherworldly sense of being rather helpless. I remember sitting in the BBC office in London taking a call from him while he was out filming in South Africa, and he wanted to know where he was. How was I meant to know? We did a studio show with an audience in the North of England and he seemed visibly uncomfortable.