Gary O'Donoghue

speaker

1,144 appearances 20 recordings 4 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard 7 Sep

Gary O'Donoghue’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

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Desert Island Discs · Gary O'Donoghue, journalist · 14 Jun 2026 podcast

They were hardworking.

My dad worked nights most of the time.

My mum, when she sort of gave up dancing and had a family, then sort of spent a lot of time working in bars and shops and things like that.

And they were incredibly patient.

They were great parents.

That was before I was born.

Although, funnily enough, when I was growing up, he would sort of offload some of this knowledge to me.

So when we were driving around in London and going to see my grandparents or whatever, he would tell me where we were and which road led to which road.

And then he would ask me, you know, test me.

How would you go from this place to this place?

And so I have this sort of still to this day, I have this knowledge that runs from sort of Camden in the north to the river and in the south.

And then kind of the city in the east, probably as far as Notting Hill in the west, where I kind of pretty much know where things are.

A bit of a mental map that passed on.

So, I mean, I was born in North London, but, you know, I grew up in Essex, you know, until I was sent away to school.

And quite early on, I think through my elder brother, Stephen, I started listening to Ian Dury, who's sort of quintessential Essex.

He wrote a song called Billericcy Dicky.

And I remember on the day of the royal wedding in 1981, Princess Dime, Prince Charles...

The GLC, London Council, was putting on this alternative event where Ian Drury was headlining, and I begged my parents to go, and they wouldn't let me.

They made me sit at home and watch The Royal Wedding instead.

But the song I've actually chosen from him is a sort of gentler, what I would regard as sort of a bit of a poking fun at Essex and the kind of ways of Essex, and it's Clever Trevor.

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