Ten Years On

I’m just watching Andy Murray’s first match of Wimbledon this year, and I am finding it incredibly hard to believe that it is a decade since he lifted that trophy.?That was such a major event and I can’t get my head around the fact that it was ten years ago!!??

Mind you, I am also struggling with the fact that I left the BBC ten years ago! TEN YEARS!! ?A whole decade!?I just can’t believe it. On one hand it feels like just yesterday, and on the other, well ... so much has happened.

I started working at the BBC in 1983 on a temporary contract and stayed … for thirty years! I worked on some major events but to my delight, I also covered a lot of Wimbledons - including in 2005, when I interviewed a certain Mr Murray and his mother, just before his first Centre Court appearance.?He was fairly monosyllabic and not very smiley but his mother, the inimitable Judy Murray was much more talkative.?She gave me a fair few interviews over the years that followed, and was always lovely. And even though Andy Murray was never the most enthusiastic interviewee, I have loved watching him play over the years and have a very soft spot for him.?

His last ten years have been pretty eventful … and so have mine!

I remember leaving the Beeb with some anxiety as it was the only organisation I knew, and I didn’t really know how not to be employed!??

I had made the decision to leave in order to pursue an acting career, which I had already started while at the Corporation using my extensive time off in lieu to work on short film projects or fringe theatre productions.?I gave myself two years to see how it would pan out but if I’m honest, I fully expected that it wouldn’t!

So, it has been a pleasant surprise that in the last decade I’ve had some great jobs.?Some with profile and some that were just the best fun to do.?From Hollywood to Hollyoaks! Given that I thought nothing would ever come of it, this acting thing has kept me fairly busy, which is all that I could ever have asked for.

?In fact, I remember spending the first year writing – a novel, which I bizarrely won’t let anyone see (!) and several short plays, quite a few of which have made it on stage. I thought if the acting thing didn’t take off, I would have that to fall back on but I haven’t had a chance to pursue it.

But man, ten years!?So much has happened in the last decade and when I look back at the various projects I have been part of, it takes my breath away.?

I wonder if Andy Murray feels like that.?So much has happened to him since that first Wimbledon win ten years ago.?There was another Wimbledon win three years later, marriage and four gorgeous children.?But there have also been a number of serious injuries, including a hip replacement … though that’s almost impossible to believe as I watch him now on court with Ryan Peniston, nearly ten years his junior, still playing so beautifully and seemingly effortlessly.?

He hints at the start of every Wimbledon that it could be his last, just as he has done this year.?Maybe it will be, but one thing is for sure – he’ll still achieve so much in the next ten years too.?

And so, I hope, will I. Nothing in his league of course.?But just getting opportunities to do this thing that I love.?So much. ?

Roll on the next decade !?

Oh, and good luck, Andy!