Sir Terry Wogan

Two years after Sir Terry Wogan’s death, Harry Borden looks back on photographing this very private man with a giftfor communication

- David Clark

When I photographed Sir Terry Wogan at his home, I had no idea that he was ill, let alone that my pictures would be the last portraits made of the veteran TV and radio broadcaster. It was the second time I had done a shoot with him and both my experiences were very different.

The first shoot took place in Spring Studios, London, in January 2006. I was commissioned by his publisher, Orion Books, to shoot the cover image of his autobiography, Mustn’t Grumble. I had previously photographed a number of broadcasters of a similar generation, such as Michael Parkinson and David Frost, and found them professional but also quite brusque and intimidating. On that first shoot, Terry was similarly ‘old-school’ and just wanted to get the pictures done. He was doing his shtick and putting on his public face for the camera; there wasn’t any great breaking-down of barriers to reveal the real Terry.

After the book was published in 2007, I remember riding through London on my motorbike and finding myself behind a double-decker bus that was covered by one of the pictures I had taken. This doesn’t often happen, so I followed the bus, got out my camera and photographed it (see below). But it wasn’t a shoot I remembered with any particular affection.