'I had to ask Princess Anne if her father was alive' - the inside story of 2020
Lee Mottershead speaks to those at the centre of a remarkable 12 months
In a North Yorkshire farmhouse, Andrew Thornton was unwell.
The former jockey's garden gate is no more than a cricket pitch length from The Bay Horse, a pub famous with locals for having a ghost and serving up pie, chips and peas for a fiver every other Wednesday. It was early in the week after the Cheltenham Festival. Thornton knew he would not be seeing the pub or a pie for some time.
He had been at Cheltenham as part of the BBC Radio team. Not everyone in that team got as far as Gold Cup day, one squad member leaving early with symptoms of the coronavirus. Thornton was there from start to finish, eventually heading home via Uttoxeter fit and well. That was about to change.
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