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Kate Adie is 64 now, and boasts the badges of a lifetime of frontline journalism around her crow’s feet eyes and across her furrowed brow. No time for botox here, or for a family; or for a life outside of the News Room. For 25 years she was the face of the war torn World as covered by the BBC. Rewind 40 years and you would find Jane Ferguson - young, fresh and blonde; all bundles of serious enthusiasm and burning ambition, no Botox here, either for the Adie reincarnation.
Like a true journalist she has turned up undercover-disguised as a Jumeirah Jane, smart clothes, clippie heals, perfectly preened and playfully swinging her obligatory Jimmy Choo handbag. Once she speaks the facade falls away. There is a controlled intense seriousness to even the most trivial of conversation and the depth of her education and life experience; squeezed into no-time-at-all; seep from the edges of the conversation.
“Just outside South Armagh …” her soft Irish tone describes the worst postcode in Europe in the last quarter of the last century, as the place she grew up. For those unfamiliar with what the Irish, euphemistically call ‘The Troubles’, this equates to today’s Gaza central “… there are 4 of us. My two sisters who are both veterinary surgeons and my brother who’s a motor sports engineer - so I’m the black sheep really”, a feeble attempt to play down her achievements. “I was always super inquisitive as a kid, so journalism was a natural choice - my dad called me Jane the Pain.” My NOKIA has her down as ‘Jane the Journo’ in case I give her an inappropriate quote and find myself across the front page of the Gulf News. “And I knew I wanted to cover the Middle East”, she says.
I guess if you grow up on the front line you kind of miss it, but it’s quite one thing to ‘hope to cover the Middle East’ it’s another thing entirely to slip casually from gentle Irish brogue to fluent Arabic, and to embed yourself in Yemen, sporting an abbia and chatting to Kalashnikov clutching tribal elders, chasing down stories. An hour or so’s flight from Dubai, but turn your watch back 3 centuries on arrival. “I loved it there, the people are beautiful, simple, honest and open minded. I hate when people have ill founded pre-conceptions of the Middle East, and Yemen was an education for me.”
“Dubai is different and to be fair I feel like I have sold out sometimes, it’s beautiful here and after a few months of re-adjusting I love my life. Don’t get me wrong, there are times that I want to be stuck in a bunker in Baghdad, but I like a nice spa day as much as the next girl, and on more than one occasion I have been known to ‘dance uniquely’ after some liquid encouragement!” At last she slips and lets out a girlie giggle.
“When I first got here, I was a Sub Editor on the Gulf News. That means you get to do lots of running around, catching the ball for other people I guess - and if you’re good, correcting spelling mistakes. But I got a break - a typical “right place, right time” call, when I was the only one available with a UK passport who could head for the States at a moment’s notice. They asked me to post one short article - I posted 5 large ones and now someone else makes the tea.” Jane, “My friends call me Janie” is now the Business Features Writer for the Gulf News, the turbulent economy making it the new Middle East war zone. And of course if you are going to sell out, sell out big - “I love living on the Palm, I have a cool apartment across the road, and it’s bliss. The beach, the bars, and have you been to the new Spa at the end yet? It’s great, and I’m blessed to live here!” She will be here for a while yet, then print will become TV and in a quarter of a century she will be the one doing the book signings at the Dubai Literature Festival, and declining interviews from young enthusiastic hacks - remember that. You read it here first, does that make this a scoop?
