Kate Adie

I sailed through my childhood with a complete lack of any drama.

I was timid and frightened as a child. Yours truly did not shin up mountains or do any other kind of adventurous stuff.

Now children as young as nine carry AK47s which can kill 30 people in seconds.

War zones are dangerous, protests can be violent, also, natural disasters are difficult to cover, so there are going to be risks.

There was no equal pay law when I started working. I was no different to any other woman in any other job at the time.

I don't sit there and speculate. I'm not that sort of person. It wastes time, actually.

I wrote in the book very specifically what I wanted to write about, period, and left it at.

I have no time for the endless nostalgia: 'Oh gosh I used to . . . ' Life is too short; I don't have any time for sitting and saying I miss things. What's the point? Go and do something else.

I keep telling myself to calm down, to take less of an interest in things and not to get so excited, but I still care a lot about liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and fairness in journalism.

I also read modern novels - I have just had to read 60 as I am one of the judges for the Orange Fiction Prize.

I don't want to be involved in endless media gossip.

On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.