Londoner’s Diary: Mag editor had to call ‘cut!’ on job to see her son

Welcome to today’s Londoner’s Diary. Today, ex-Empire magazine editor Terri White says she had to leave her job to see her son, and urges a rethink of employment culture for working mums. The Back to the Future musical opens, and we speak to Robert Zemeckis and Christopher Lloyd. Bernardine Evaristo’s husband on how he looks at online reviews. Gyles Brandreth says he leaves his indiscretions out of his published memoirs - but might he spill the full beans one day? How Rishi Sunak shared a flat with a Royal Opera House director, and rats in SW1A.

I had to call ‘cut!’ on editing film magazine so I could see my son

11:00 , Robbie Smith

TERRI WHITE, the former editor of Empire magazine who left her post unexpectedly this summer, has broken her silence on her departure. “The reality is if I hadn’t had my baby, I would still be editing Empire now,” she says.

White, who had a child 18 months ago, went on: “Nine months after being back from maternity leave, I was completely exhausted. I was not seeing my son. I did that weird thing they do in films where you go in and watch your baby sleep in the dark”.

Attempts to reach an agreement with parent company Bauer Media failed. “Unfortunately in terms of resource for the team, we just couldn’t [agree],” White told the Media Voices podcast.

White added “employers instead of just saying they want to keep women in employment, they have to make practical tangible differences to allow us to stay there”.

Bauer said that while it was not appropriate to comment “on individual conversations” they do “acknowledge the wider issues that Terri raises”.

Brandreth, the discreet diarist

12:55

Gyles Brandreth’s memoir doesn’t mean he’s retiring. “I’m mid-career”, the 73-year-old told us last night, blaming lockdown for the fact that “everybody’s been writing one”. The ex-MP and raconteur, who was friendly with Prince Philip, says he doesn’t put everything in his books. “I’m terribly discreet,” he says. However, he does record most things. “My diaries won’t be like Chips Channon… I don’t censor myself when I’m writing, only when publishing”. Will the whole truth come out one day?

Back to the Future - the musical

13:45 , Robbie Smith

THE Back to the Future musical premiered at the Adelphi Theatre last night. Director of the films Robert Zemeckis told us he’d love to time travel “as long as I could come back”. Original Doc Brown Christopher Lloyd got a standing ovation, but told us he wasn’t much of a singer. Over at the Royal Festival Hall, Myleene Klass, Shobna Gulati, Richard E Grant and Max Harwood were at the premiere of musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Evaristo’s delight at husband’s book

14:15 , Robbie Smith

Bernardine Evaristo’s husband David Shannon has been ignoring his wife’s advice not to read online reviews. “Bernardine absolutely 100 per cent told me not to,” the author told us at the launch of his first novel Howul. “I’m not as strong and as sensible as her so I just desperately seek out any comment about my book.”

Before that Shannon was more shy. He didn’t tell his wife he was writing a book and didn’t tell his publisher his wife was a prize winning author. Happily Evaristo told us when she read it, “I was astonished”.