“And it’s actually quite true. Back then, nobody thought about going on much beyond their 40s. I was being written off in the early 2000s. All the time, it was ‘Who’s going to replace Sue?’ I wasn’t ready to go then. But things did change. I don’t know where it changed or when it changed, but I never ever thought I would have thirty years doing that job.”
Didn’t she have to deal with everyday sexism in such a notoriously male-dominated workplace? “No, almost the opposite. In fact, they handed me everything. I think they broke down the barriers more than put them up for me.
“When I was first starting out, I remember going to Des [Lynam] and saying, ‘As a female, should I do this?’ And he was really supportive, really helpful. He said, ‘Look, you’ve got to do it. You know sport, and you understand what everyone’s going through’.
“Whereas so many other people were, ‘Oh, you haven’t come through the broadcast side of things’. OK, I hadn’t. [Instead, she had learnt on the job, first as a commentator for Channel 7 in Australia, and then as the anchor for BSkyB’s tennis coverage]. But then the career broadcasters don’t know what it’s like to walk out on Centre Court at Wimbledon.
“I did Sports Personality of the Year the very next year after I joined the BBC. I was doing Grandstand and I was doing the Olympics. I never expected to do those shows, but it was a privilege. And then David Coleman, getting me A Question of Sport. ‘We’ll have a female quiz-mistress’ – is that the word? That was unheard of as well.”
‘Cliff Richard kept harping on about me’
The Grandstand appointment was a particular highlight. This was the show that Barker had grown up watching with her parents Betty, a housewife, and Bob, who worked in Plymouth as an area representative for the brewery company Bass Charrington. Her older sister Jane was a tennis enthusiast who started her down this long road by making her collect the balls, and her brother Neil made a career in telecoms.
“I once made the dreadful mistake of putting the Grandstand music on my phone,” Barker explained. “And of course, it’s so iconic that every time it rang, people looked around and said ‘It’s her!’ So I had to change it quickly, because I suddenly thought ‘I want to be anonymous, thank you very much’.”
As soon as Barker walks off court or out of the studio, anonymity has always been her preference. On the face of things, her warm and chatty persona would make her a natural target for Strictly Come Dancing. Unfortunately for the scouts, she hates the idea, and explains that her husband Lance – a former detective in the Metropolitan Police and amateur tennis enthusiast whom she met while coaching at a David Lloyd leisure centre – would divorce her as soon as she turned her first waltz.
She prefers not to say too much about her home life, except that the couple live in the Cotswolds and have a geriatric dog who may keep Lance at home during Wimbledon. And she certainly does not like talking about Cliff Richard, the tennis-loving singer who took her out on a few dates in 1982. In Calling the Shots, she revealed her exasperation over Richard’s repeated reheating of that brief interlude.
“The only thing we have fallen out about is the fact that he kept harping on about me in interviews – ‘I didn’t love her enough to propose’, and so forth … I really enjoyed our early friendship, but the hurt that came with all his talk, not just for me, but for Lance – who’s been constantly reminded why someone else wouldn’t marry his wife – is something that is just not fair.”
Any discussion of politics is also taboo. When I mention that this year’s Wimbledon broadcast will necessarily have to fit around the General Election on July 4 – otherwise known as second-round day – Barker throws her head back. “Don’t ask me about that. I’m not interested in the election. Between the Euros and the election, I don’t know where tennis is going to feature, but probably not that highly. Not even interested. Thank you.”
Barker sees herself as two things: a former athlete and a broadcaster. Her tennis career lasted 12 years, and was nurtured by the advice of an eccentric coach: Arthur Roberts, who worked out of the Palace Hotel in Torquay and had also coached 1961 Wimbledon champion Angela Mortimer. Even though Roberts refused to leave Devon under any circumstances, he insisted that his 17-year-old protegée should travel to the US in 1974 and join the nascent WTA Tour, which had been launched the previous summer.