Diary - Rosie Millard

20 January 2003 – New Statesman

I hide in the disabled toilet and express some milk for ten minutes. Then I put it in the Today programme fridge. I just hope the journalists don't pour it into their teacups.

As we all know, January is for looking back as well as forward; and this year I've done more looking back than normal. I've been trying to recall the small things as well as the big: walking with my small son through autumn leaves; playing on a Cornish beach; having our third child. The reason I've been so anxious to remember is that my diary for 2002 was stolen just before I finished it.

Keeping a diary, as the Uber-diarist Tony Benn says, means you experience life three times. Once when you live it, once when you write it down, once when you reread it. My diary isn't remarkable literature, but writing it was compelling. I think I began it from fear of my entire existence disappearing into a plughole of amnesia. Plus, I'm looking forward to reliving those mad moments 30 years later: "Threw up before the Oscars. Concerned I might not be able to broadcast", etc. And it might have amused the children to know who they wowed and at which parties they were carted around: "Went to Sally Green's fabulous Christmas drinks with the baby. Instant crowd appeal. Maureen Lipman gives her a cuddle. Richard E Grant leans over and kisses her hair." Poignantly, the diary was stolen on a journey from St Bride's, where in 1633 the great diarist himself, Samuel Pepys, was christened.

This is how it happened: We were having lunch with my friend Laura and her family in south London. In a spirit of exercise-taking, my husband chooses to go by bike, first giving me his wallet, which is awkward to cycle with. So, after church, the children (five, three and 12 weeks) are bundled in the back of the car. Doors firmly locked, off we go. We are nearly at Laura's when my son Gabriel takes his seat belt off. If I was ever to have a crash, I just know it would be when someone had their seat belt off. Thanks to this superstition, I stop, open the doors, walk round to the back seats and put his belt back on. At which point, I look up to see a man in the front seat of the car, stealing my bag. "No!" I shout. Do I think of my wallet, my husband's wallet, my make-up, my Dictaphone (which, bizarrely, holds an untranscribed interview with Lord Bath)? Of course not. There's only one thing in my mind. "Give me my diary back!" He charges off. My bag disappears with him. I scream, "My diary!" Chase after him? Fat chance. I'm wearing Vivienne Westwood boots with four-inch heels. It is Christmas Day.

A diary of sorts is coming back to us, namely a dossier of all those places where our credit cards are now being used. It's not very interesting, as it comprises Shell garages, bureaux de change and Dixons. Cheques are being cashed for £93.50 - if you keep it below £100 and give an approximation of your victim's signature, there's no problem with cheque guarantees. Oh yes, my chequebook was in there, too. Seeing the footprint of my stolen goods weaving through south London is proof positive my bag was stolen. And I need proof. The actual event was so fast and unexpected that it has a lightning unreality about it. And now I am intimately linked to a mugger in south London. I occasionally envisage him counting his daily take, perhaps flicking idly through my diary, listening on my Dictaphone to Lord Bath talking about the wifelets, or wondering what that plastic wiggly thing is in a box inscribed "Rosie Millard Left Ear".

It's an earpiece for live broadcasting. And very useful it would have been, too, this week in my current persona of roving reporter for BBC1's The Morning Show. This is the BBC's new daytime magazine and my job is about as far from doing stories about arts policies on the Ten O' Clock News as you can get. In the past week, I've been dealing with Cilla Black's resignation, talked about Kate Winslet's remarkable shrinking body, discussed the finer points of J-Lo's wedding and shown the nation the latest trendy accessory, a small Peruvian guinea pig. Fabulous stuff. It's the perfect tonic for the combined traumas of the handbag, a resigning nanny and returning to work after maternity leave.

The only people who don't seem to like our show are on the neighbouring desks in the newsroom. We are too noisy and excitable, it appears, for the Today programme. Unsigned notes have been left on colleagues' desks, saying things like "Could you be a bit louder?" The funny thing is that when there is an important football match on, and a key goal is scored, the whole Today team becomes very loud and extremely noisy around the television sets in the newsroom for quite a long time.

So what have I done with the baby? Not physically, of course. We have a lovely stand-in nanny who copes energetically with baby Honey and the other two. I'm talking about feeding the infant. As any mother will know, breastfeeding takes time to get going. No sooner do you get the hang of it than you have to go back to work. So my solution involves hiding in the disabled toilet for ten minutes and expressing some milk at lunchtime. I then need to store the milk in a fridge. Where's the nearest fridge? Well, that same programme on the neighbouring desks has one, right behind the editor's desk. My only prayer is that it doesn't get muddled up and poured into teacups during Today's afternoon editorial meeting. That really would make them annoyed.