My chance meeting with ‘courageous’ BBC journalist
Jimmy Cricket has been recalling the moment he met a BBC TV news reporter on his way to catch a plane.
The famous entertainer was travelling to the United States to attend his daughter Jamie’s wedding earlier this year.
In his latest Lancashire Post column, Jimmy tells about his encounter with news presenter Orla Guerin.
He posted the image above and an accompanying comment on Twitter about his November column.
Jimmy said: “I tell of my chance meeting with this wonderful courageous lady @OrlaGuerin in Manchester Airport on my way to New York this summer!”
Orla Guerin MBE is an Irish journalist currently working as a BBC International Correspondent based in Istanbul.
Jimmy says: “How many times have we looked at our television screens and heard those dulcet Irish tones calling out from some war-ravaged part of the globe?
“Shining a light on injustice, holding dictators to task and giving a platform to the oppressed and downtrodden?
‘Spoke with affection’
“Now here she was standing opposite me uttering these immortal words ‘what’s your surname again?’
“Yes readers, I was face to face with BBC correspondent Orla Guerrin. And she couldn’t have been nicer.
“We weren’t in a life-threatening situation now, although going through security at Manchester Airport can be quite stressful.
“Orla was a delight.
“She smiled and, after she’d retrieved her belongings from the security belt, Mrs Cricket took a photograph of the two of us.
“Then, later on in the airport lounge, we talked about comedy and the entertain industry.
“She spoke with affection about the entertainers from her hometown in Dublin that we both knew.
“Then she was off to Istanbul for another assignment and we were off to New York for our daughter Jamie’s wedding.”