I had a love hate relationship with this element of my broadcasting career. It was a huge privilege and responsibility to get to the truth, expose really important local issues and quite often bring about real, tangible change. What worked for me was to adopt a calm, clear, forensic style focusing 100% on what my listener would want me to ask and listening astutely to what my guest had to say. When you get it right the people who pay your wages (the listeners) love you for it. I insisted we only did these interviews on merit because if you flood your show with the same old ranty rows every day it become tedious and has no impact. However, I don’t miss the endless evasion, the hours of prep the night before, the fear of not “nailing it” and the furious complaints from press officers afterwards. Oh, hang on, I did quite like that last bit because I never had to deal with it.

A former Chief Constable once demand I visit their HQ for a dressing down after a particularly feisty debate. We refused on the grounds there was no legal requirement for this, which you’d have thought they would have known. Council leaders have stormed out of mystudio, MP’s have threatened to report me to their chums who “are very high in the BBC” and when David Cameron forgot the name of the swing seat of Stroud, his gaff was broadcast across the globe. It is still on YouTube if you search. 

My funniest encounter socially with local politicians happened at an outdoor summer party where a beach bar had been set up. Three powerful high-profile local politicians were hogging the bar and glaring at me. In the previous month all of them had put in complaints about me and I felt a tad uncomfortable approaching the bar, despite my desperate need for a cold beer. Up pops England Rugby World Cup Winner Phil Vickery who is a mate and was a keen listener. He wasn’t a fan of any of them and said” Don’t worry mate, you come up with me and we will sort this”. I bought the drinks and Phil’s thunderous stare put the fear of god into each and every one of them.