Image Credit: Paula Bronstein
Q. You grew up in Bathurst in New Brunswick, Canada. What were you like as a child?
Curious. My younger sister always tells a story about how, when the Prime Minister at the time, Pierre Trudeau, came to our little hometown, I was the one who pushed through the crowds to make sure I got his autograph. I don’t remember, but she was very impressed.
I still have a late slip from the local library asking me to bring back the book How to be a Journalist.
For me, journalism is a licence to go anywhere and ask questions, and to this day, I think, wow, I can turn up anywhere and say: “Hi, I'm Lyse Doucet from the BBC, Can I ask you a question?” And if they don’t answer, then that’s an answer too.
Q. What was the biggest lesson you learnt from your parents?
I am one of six children, and my mother would always say to us, “Whatever you do, just do your best and that’s going to be good enough.” There was a comfort in knowing that.
One of my grandmothers always kept her door open. If people ask me what skills I have, I think it is the fact that I grew up in a small town and with that comes an openness and being kind to people.
In interviews I always try to be personally warm, but professionally on the mark.
Q. You were 23 when you left Canada to pursue your dream and you’ve lived in London for many years. Where feels like home?
I am still Canadian – my family live there and I go when I can. Home is many, many places. I always wanted to be a foreign correspondent but there weren’t many jobs in Canada when I graduated. So I joined Canada Crossroads International [a development organisation] and that's how I got my ticket to travel to be a journalist.
It was a bit scary as I had no experience, no money. I was on the Ivory Coast, which just happened to be where the BBC was setting up its first West Africa office. I ended up working there for five years.
These were the times when accents really mattered at the BBC – they’d get letters asking, “Where is Lyse Doucet from? Can’t you find British people?”
Q. You’ve been reporting on Afghanistan for nearly 40 years and even called it your second home. Now it’s the focus of your first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul. Why are you so drawn to the country and its people?
Everyone has the country that really captures their imagination for me, it’s Afghanistan. I’ve lived in Jordan, Jerusalem and on the Ivory Coast, but Afghanistan has really stayed with me.
It has helped shape my view that during war, in those most inhumane of times, you often find the greatest humanity. Over many years, the Afghans have made me feel at home. I went there for the first time in 1988 when I was 30 (to cover the withdrawal of Russian troops) and stayed for a year, living in the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul.
So much history has passed through that hotel. When I was looking to find a new way of telling the story of Afghanistan. I decided to do it through the hotel and the stories of the staff who worked there. It’s a way of narrowing the gap, of showing that these people are not much different from us.
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