I saw Jimmy Carter sink a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale and promise to change the world
As a rookie reporter in the 1980s, I was sent to interview the former president. He watched cricket on a village green, then bowled us all over with a speech Trump could never give
On American Independence Day 1987, I found myself sitting opposite former president Jimmy Carter, by then six years out of office, in a beautifully tended garden in the rural Tyne valley, home of a chartered accountant called Tony Coates. Coates’ two daughters – Amy, nine, and Charlotte, six – sat on his knees.
We were to discuss Carter’s vision for his post-presidential years and the ethos of his visit: the 10th anniversary of Friendship Force, which he introduced in 1977 soon after becoming president, to connect people across the world with home exchanges between Americans and others – including citizens of communist China and the USSR. They had begun between 381 Americans and 381 Geordies, including Coates.
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