Picture Section

It’s 1945. The war has ended and half of Cardiff was queuing up to go somewhere – anywhere! – by train. I’m the blond toddler in my mother’s arms.

An excursion with the Trinity Youth Club. Please note my natty cravat (I’m second from the left on the front row) – and the girls all wearing dresses. Jeans were yet to arrive.

I had just joined the Merthyr Express. And if this picture is any guide I wasn’t too happy about it …

One of my many reports on the Liverpool dock strikes. The dock workers fought the arrival of containers – and lost.

These kids on a street in Cardiff were far more impressed with the camera than with me.

I’d been the first television reporter at Aberfan. I was twenty-three. (ITV)

Even this picture gives only a hint of the destruction. Decades later I still cannot comprehend how those brave people were able to cope with such tragedy. (Staff/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

Interviewing a British soldier on the streets of Belfast at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. More than 3,500 people were to die.

Waiting outside the White House for Richard Nixon to make his last appearance as president …

… and covering the convention that had given him the job two years earlier.

Making the most of a snowy American winter.

Sledging with family in snowy Washington DC.

The great PG Wodehouse, still writing in his eighties when I interviewed him. He wasn’t happy with what he’d just written, but I rescued it from the bin and he signed it for me. A great honour!

Joshua Nkomo, a rebel leader fighting to become the first president of the new, independent Zimbabwe. Mugabe beat him to it.

Protests on the streets of London always attracted the cameras.

Celebrating my departure from BBC TV News with Sue Lawley looking the worse for wear – or just dodging the spray …

The BBC newscasting team in 1981. (United News/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

At the Today papers desk with Sue MacGregor and Roger Mosey, the editor, 1993. (Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs/Getty Images)

On air with Brian Redhead, 1991. (Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs/Getty Images)

On air with Sue MacGregor.

Shooting the breeze with John Cleese, in a very nineties picture.

Trying to show Jim Naughtie who was boss outside the old Broadcasting House.

Our production office at Broadcasting House on the day we moved to Television Centre in White City in 1998. (Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs/Getty Images)

Interviewing John Major.

David Cameron. Ties were no longer required for prime ministers.

Jimmy Carter – still going strong in his nineties.

Tony Blair and me on the set of the late, lamented On the Record.

The Tony Blair interview on Today, as seen from the control room.

John MacGregor, one of Thatcher’s cabinet ministers, tasked with removing my head. His accomplice was Terry Wogan. They failed.

The war in Iraq had ended, but the fighting would continue for years to come. Basra palace with Major-General Barney White-Spunner. (BBC)

Talking to British troops in Basra. (BBC)

John Humphrys portrait. (Chris Floyd)