Then I heard my voice say—and I can hear it still—“No John, I’m afraid I’m leaving.”

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 251.

I worked hard at the Normans, but was always conscious that time was passing. After a year en disponibilité I had amassed vast quantities of notes but had still not written the first page. Personnel Department played me on a long line: my time was up at the end of September and it was almost Christmas before the dread telephone rang.

“Hello John Julius, how’s it all going?”

I told them that I was hard at work, and that things were going very well; but I was summoned to Carlton House Terrace and knew that the great decision would now have to be made. A day or two later I was sitting in the tube on my way there, still wondering what I wanted to do; but did I dare do it? For the last year I hadn’t earned a penny, and my book wouldn’t be finished for another three years at the earliest. I was the father of a growing family; was I mad—or perhaps criminally irresponsible—to throw up a safe and enjoyable career for a pipe dream? I walked into John Henniker’s office. Still I didn’t know how I was going to answer the inevitable question. Then I heard my voice say—and I can hear it still—“No John, I’m afraid I’m leaving.”

Already as I spoke and as he grasped me warmly by the hand and wished me luck, I regretted it; and all the way home I cursed myself for an idiot. Would I return the next day, I wondered—on all fours—and say “Take me back, take me back, I didn’t mean it?” But there: I never did, and I now realize that this was one of the best decisions of my life. Indeed it was more than a decision, for it marked the watershed. Until that day, technically speaking at any rate, I had been an employee, bound to turn up at the office in the morning, obey orders, go where I was sent, ask permission if I wanted to take the afternoon off. I had never particularly minded my committed state, and was fully aware that all my colleagues and most of my friends were in the same position; but I had always envied the self-employed, and was thrilled at the thought that I had at last cut the cord and was henceforth to be one of them myself. By evening I had overcome my misgivings and was conscious of a feeling of genuine elation. Anne and I opened a bottle of champagne. I was free. From this time forth my life and my time were my own.

There remained, of course, the problem of how I was going to feed my children; but once again I struck lucky. A few weeks later I went to a dinner party and met an American lady called Dee Wells, the former wife of the Minister at the American Embassy. She was doing a regular television program five evenings a week, and she asked me if I would like to join her on it. The program was called Three After Six; basically it consisted of three people who watched the six o’clock news and then chatted about it for twenty minutes afterwards. Dee was the anchorwoman; the other two varied. At the time I was involved Alan Brien and Benny Green were the two most regular favorites, but Nicholas Tomalin and several others turned up from time to time. I usually did three programs a week, and as I was paid £50 for each appearance—still in those days quite a lot of money—it made a considerable difference to our domestic budget. Besides, one job led to another; by the end of the year I found myself doing a fair amount of broadcasting.