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THE SATURDAY INTERVIEW:Although he turns 67 in July and ‘Questions and Answers’ airs for the last time on Monday, John Bowman has no plans to wind down towards retirement

HOW TO interview the consummate interviewer? Any such plan suddenly seems a tad pedestrian at the mews in leafy Pembroke Lane, in the heart of Dublin 4. The death of a child defines a family; for them the worst has happened. And as it happens, John and Eimer Bowman have just returned from St Clare’s national school, Harold’s Cross, from the annual presentation of creative-writing awards in the name of their eldest child, Jonathan, whose own son, Saul, was a pupil there. Nine years on, beyond the forbiddingly high wooden gate, inside the sunny, unpretentious city garden with its pear and magnolia trees and simple, concrete slabs, Jonathan’s forever young, mischievous spirit seems to flit around us, taunting the techno-idiot from The Irish Times, daring her to dream up an original question and discombobulate his old man, the one who knows bloody everything but – according to family convention – knows only five jokes.