Jeremy Paxman has revealed his pet spaniel helped him first discover he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease after a seemingly innocuous tumble when they were out walking.

The former Newsnight and University Challenge host, who was formally diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease three years ago, said his rescue dog Derek indirectly made him realise he had something wrong with his nervous system.

Paxman, 74, who left Newsnight a decade ago after 25 years, and retired as University Challenge’s grand inquisitor in 2021, told his podcast: “Derek was the being that discovered my Parkinson’s. I thought he’d run off after a squirrel – or more likely someone opening a sandwich bag – and that he’d dragged me into a hole, from which I emerged bloody but unbowed.

“But it wasn’t him and it certainly wasn’t his fault – it was Parkinson’s!”

Paxman is a campaigner for better treatment for “Parkies” and a commentator on the indignities of the condition through the podcast, Movers and Shakers, which he co-hosts along with Mark Mardell, Rory Cellan-Jones, Gillian Lacey-Solymar and former High Court judge Sir Nicholas Mostyn.

In this week’s episode, Paxman discussed the fateful dog walk fall in 2021.

While he was uninjured, the presenter was shaken enough to get himself checked out and subsequent tests revealed the devastating Parkinson’s diagnosis.

Paxman said of Derek: “Apart from being someone to share a Scotch egg with, he’s also a focus for affection. I love this dog.” Derek attends many of the recording sessions in Paxman’s local pub in West London.

Derek, who attends many of the Movers and Shakers’ recording sessions in Paxman’s local pub in Notting Hill, west London, is renowned as the calmest and most amiable of dogs, unlike his owner, who has lost little of his caustic bite since retirement. 

He caused a storm of controversy earlier this year when he declared: “Parkinson's may not kill you but it makes you wish you hadn't been born," as he and his fellow Movers And Shakers delivered “The Parky Charter” – a list of recommendations about the disease to Downing Street.