Kenneth Harris would “go to the loo or the top of a bus” and write down the contents of his interviews while it was fresh in his memory.
It’s remarkable how much he could remember. He once wrote 8,000 words, based on 2x two-hour interviews with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was astounded by the accuracy.
After some years, Harris was persuaded to use a tape recorder, and found that his powers of recall had gone: a sobering thought, in an age when we allow tech to do our remembering for us.
As an interviewer, Harris said he adopted the persona of village idiot: “My ignorance, not my knowledge, has got me my success. I am naive, curious, but I don’t have much knowledge.”
Interview Club takes place on Thursdays at 4pm UK, here on Zoom.
Kenneth Harris: No tape recording, no written notes