When Hugh Sykes speaks

When Hugh Sykes speaks to me I am usually in my car, driving home after a day at work and listening to the radio.   He brings his reports from far off and exotic sounding places, usually across the Middle East and when he speaks to me I am transported there.  I am taken to places that I have never been and am never likely to get to.  I am not that adventurous.

A few days ago he gave a report from Leptis Magna in Libya.  His words spoke to me in the foreground giving me the detail but his sentences painted in the background, filling it with colour and atmosphere.  As he spoke I could see the beautiful clear blue sky and could feel that warmth of the sun on my back.  I could see the oil tankers at anchor in the sea, framed between two Roman columns.  I could see the triumphal arch and the ancient stones lying at its base and I could hear the chatter of the birds in the trees.

When he later made his way into the local market I could sense the hubbub and busyness of the street traders.  I could see the young boys that gathered excitedly around him, pulling at his sleeves to attract his attention with their black hair and grinning tanned faces so full of life.  When he spoke to one of the traders I could see his old and wrinkled hands and his lined and unshaven face.  I could see him as he turned to his wife who was sitting down behind him on some box of provisions.  She was wearing a black headscarf and listening intently to the conversation, straining to comprehend the foreign tongue which her husband had mastered but of which she had only the odd word.

Hugh Sykes is not just a reporter or a radio journalist; he is much more than that, he is a story teller, he is a chronicler and he is a narrator.  What he presents are not just sound-bites or articles or reports but rather anecdotes, fables, tragedies and even romances.  What he says is remembered because it resonates with the listener, his words strike a chord and he is entertaining like all good story tellers. You might say he has a way with words.

I have long noticed that when I am trying to write something descriptive, trying to paint a picture with words then there is a voice that I hear inside my head.  I have now realised that when I am writing the voice I hear sounds very much like when Hugh Sykes speaks.