Advertisement
TV

Frank Gardner: ‘I changed after I was shot’

The journalist told The Big Issue how he adjusted to life after Riyadh

Legendary journalist and author Frank Gardner was shot six times at close range. And survived. In A Letter To My Younger Self, the 57-year-old told The Big Issue how the experience impacted him.

In 2004, Gardner was caught up in an attack by al-Qaida gunmen in Saudi capital Riyadh.

“I’ve changed since the first few months after I was shot,” he said. “I was seven months in hospital, I had 14 surgical operations. I was shot to pieces.

“That was a low time. I just thought, well that’s it. Life as I know it is over.

But, the BBC security correspondent added, that was nonsense. He was exhausted when he finally left hospital, wrung out by months of intrusive surgeries.

“But I worked really hard in the gym and I started to get my strength back,” he said. “And I found there’s something oddly liberating about a near-death experience. I just stopped sweating the small stuff.”

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement

Gardner never thought he would be in a wheelchair and “tries to ignore it”. It doesn’t stop him getting involved with things he likes and he still goes scuba diving and skiing.

“The wheelchair is just a platform to whizz me around,” he said. “But sometimes I see pictures of myself and I realise that’s what I must look like to other people. Because I look out of myself, not at myself.

“So when I see a photograph I think, God, that’s me in a wheelchair. How weird. I just can’t see myself that way.”

Read the full interview in this week’s Big Issue, available from your local vendor until Sunday.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

SIGN THE PETITION

It's our call to Keir Starmer to pass a law to end poverty.
big issue vendor holding up a 'we need a poverty zero law' sign

Recommended for you

Read All
Mark Gatiss: 'All my childhood dreams came true. There's nothing left except James Bond'
Letter To My Younger Self

Mark Gatiss: 'All my childhood dreams came true. There's nothing left except James Bond'

Anna Friel and Jimmy McGovern on redemption, new drama Unforgivable and the power of storytelling
TV

Anna Friel and Jimmy McGovern on redemption, new drama Unforgivable and the power of storytelling

Karen Pirie star Lauren Lyle: 'I love screaming to heavy metal in the car'
TV

Karen Pirie star Lauren Lyle: 'I love screaming to heavy metal in the car'

Eric Idle: 'George Harrison mortgaged his house so Monty Python could make Life of Brian'
Letter To My Younger Self

Eric Idle: 'George Harrison mortgaged his house so Monty Python could make Life of Brian'

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue