The Red Machine in full effect

Prime Minister Gordon Brown adopts a cheerful stance

It was around 3pm on my second day of work experience at The Star, Sheffield’s daily newspaper, when the shout came across the office in my direction: “Do you want to go and meet Gordon Brown?”

Twenty minutes later I was sprinting through the city with the paper’s political correspondent en route to a five-minute chat at Sheffield Station with the Labour leader. We got there just in time and, while my colleague was ushered to a seat in the open-plan cafe at the station entrance, I hovered and tried to blend in seamlessly with the press pack.

“Are you with the media?” asked a rather worried looking Labour press officer.
“I am indeed. I’m on a work experience placement with The Star,” I said. She looked at me quizically, decidedly nonplussed.
“Where to next?”, I asked.
“I can’t tell you,” she said. “Sorry. Please excuse me.” before moving swiftly on to someone more important.

As the minutes ticked past the scheduled arrival time, the level of expectation on the station concourse was swelling. One man asked what all the fuss was about then promptly disappeared saying, “I’ve read the manifesto so I have no questions.” Cameramen and boom operators looked furtively at the opening from where the former PM would emerge while the party press officers planned his path through the now crowded cafe. Everyone was thinking the same question: “Was his train late?”

And then, suddenly, the Mr Brown barrelled through the concourse, all purposeful strides and gleaming teeth. His pink tie screamed, “I’m nice!” His silver mane oozed gravitas. His imposing head signalled his mighty intellect.

Journalists, photographers and nervous looking apparatchiks floundered in his wake, rather like the tiny fish that feed on the hide of blue whales. And moving rather wistfully behind was the chancellor, Alastair Darling, looking for all the world as if he had just popped out to lunch after a cheerfully productive boardroom meeting.

As his burly protectors glared at anyone who looked like they might attempt to touch something other than his permanently outstretched right hand, Mr Brown swept through the cafe crowd in a flurry of handshakes. The universal greeting of the day? “Lovely to meet you.”

I lurked discreetly and impartially to one side surveying the scene but within seconds, without warning, he was right in front of me with his hand outstretched. Seizing my moment I accepted his (surprisingly soft) handshake and countered his now familiar “lovely to meet you” with the incisive, “hello Prime Minister”. Quite a moment in my journalistic career.

The minders were then briefly called into action when a rather scary looking young man gave the former PM a less than conventional handshake and drawled, “how you doing?” Luckily, a security beast shuffled forward and administered a look of death sufficient to keep him from attempting a prime ministerial bear-hug.

Alastair Darling sensibly kept his circle of friends much tighter, engaging in conversation with an elderly lady who seemed charmed by his talk of fiscal tightening.

And then it was down to the business of the interview. My colleague at The Star, Richard Marsden, did an admirable job among the melee to keep his cool and interview both the former PM and Chancellor over a now cold cup of tea.

A few moments later it was all over and the hordes careered out of the station in Mr Brown’s considerable wake.

As the dust settled a middle-aged lady approached another middle-aged lady. Both looked like station staff. The one who had witnessed the whole thing greeted the newcomer with, “you just missed Gordon Brown – you could have asked him a question.”

“Eeee,” she replied. “It wouldn’t have been fit for the evening news. It would have just been BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.”

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