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Hello and welcome to the Spectator Books podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of the

Spectator. This week my guest is Sarah Sam's former editor of

of the Today program, former editor of the Sunday Telegraph and Reader's Digest and former deputy

editor of the Daily Telegraph. She's been a leading light of journalism ever since I've known her.

And now she's written a new book called The Interior Silence, Ten Lessons from Monastic Life. Now, Sarah, you are probably one of the

most buzzy, plugged in, newsy, gossipy, you know, alive to the world people. I've come across

in my whole professional life, and you've now gone away and written a book about monasteries. Have you

had a bump on the head?

Yes. I think that that's a sort of clear implication of the book that I've had some kind of breakdown or that something's happened. But because I suppose I have been close to news

for a long time, the sudden desire for everyone just to shut up. Mostly myself.

It is part of that. I was remembering the phrase from the great late Frank Johnson about the chattering classes.

And I think when he wrote it, you know, he hadn't quite realised how much the volume was still to turn up.

And so I suppose it was, I mean, it was written sort of partly during lockdown, but really the spur for it was coming across a very slim volume by Patrick Lee Fermac called A Time to Keep Silence.

And he was a venture and a travel writer and tremendously social,

but he did see that there was this beautiful contrast of stone cloisters and silence

and a bit of Gregorian chanting and what that does to somehow bring back a sense of sort of peace

of mind, which I think we probably have all lost

a little bit, Sam, have we not? We have. Did it sort of sneak up on you or did it, was it conceived

as a book? I mean, you have this brilliant sort of personal intro where you have a wall at the

bottom of your garden, which obviously, you know, is a reminder.

It was a reminder, yes.

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