A passion for classical music has forever surrounded the life of veteran writer and broadcaster John Suchet so it became an obvious rite of passage when he joined Classical FM in 2010. As a teenager, he wanted to be a musician and while others were obsessing about the new sound of rock n roll, he was fascinated by the works of Beethoven which made him realise that he was a musical “nerd” which remains the source of gentle jostling in his family. Yet John is passionate about all kinds of music and believes that it’s an integral part of life, irrespective of genre or style. A fan of Jazz, John believes that all music is good for the soul. It is, as many describe, a form of cultural oxygen.
This theme is a somewhat surprising philosophy from the man who spent the majority of his career reporting on the biggest news stories of the day. Joining Reuters News agency in 1967 before moving to the BBC soon after, John experienced the process of reporting on breaking news. In 1972 Suchet swapped sides for ITN as a sub editor and covered seminal stories including the soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Philippines revolution. The Iran invasion was sadly a story which no broadcaster ever accurately told and the conflict still exists today. However, by 1986 he had been promoted to newscaster; a role he honed for the next seventeen years, becoming one of the most trusted and respected journalists in Britain. Indeed, it’s still an ironic aspect of his career that younger journalists merely think of him as a newscaster instead of a man on the ground!
As a writer, John thrives on the ability to indulge in stories that resonate with him and Beethoven’s vulnerabilities are things he finds fascinating. There’s so many angles and layers to his story that John could easily fill not just one but a whole anthology of books exploring the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven and therefore could be the subject of a follow up story. It’s clear that there’s so much more to come from the retired newscaster who constantly defies the odds and proves that age is merely a number! It was a great pleasure to welcome the legendary John Suchet to Beyond The Title and he has surely earned his right as a beloved national treasure.
Beyond The Title