So much to report

FROM massacres and warfare to sieges and earthquakes, it is hard to think of another reporter who has covered more historical moments than Kate Adie.

After years spent being beamed into millions of living rooms, Adie finally decided to write about her fascinating life. Her autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers, lurches from terrifying accounts of events including the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Gulf War to hilarious anecdotes and cynical commentary.

It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that Adie refuses to single out any one moment as the most frightening, memorable or challenging.

She said: "There have been so many different things, it is invidious to single one out."

Invidious or not, it is her reporting of Tiananmen Square which will live longest in many people's memories.

In the book Adie says: "The Chinese army was killing indiscriminately with powerful weapons, and added to that, the secret police and other officials were hunting for foreign journalists.

"I wondered if we were going to survive. The odds seemed terrible, and still I felt that we had not got enough evidence of what was happening."

Her account of reporting the Gulf War is equally powerful.

She wrote: "It was the blackened desert that I remember most vividly. There were scraps of black-edged notebooks drifting out of the bunkers.

"And every so often, an unrecognisable melted bundle of humanity, a man who had died - maybe praising, possibly cursing Saddam Hussein."

Despite being one of the world's most well-known female journalists, Adie remains indifferent to fame. She dismisses the idea she is a household name saying, "I never take much notice of things like that."

What is perhaps most surprising about the autobiography is its revelation that Sunderland-born Adie, a role model to female reporters across the globe, never intended to become a journalist. She did not dream of working for the BBC as a reporter from childhood, but instead stumbled into her calling by accident.

Starting out at the BBC as a radio station assistant in Durham, she stayed on the production side of radio until she accepted a job in Plymouth, not understanding it was a position in a TV newsroom. In fact she only realised she was working as a television reporter when she set off on her first story to be followed by a cameraman.

Although Adie's career seems to have been largely unplanned, it is clear from her book that she has real enthusiasm for the career, which forced her reluctantly into the spotlight.

She said: "It's a privilege to go on air in front of millions of people. It's extraordinary to be allowed to do that."

Adie lives by a basic philosophy of sticking to the facts and telling the truth and her honesty is evident throughout her writing. She describes in great detail and with acute observation what it was like to report from the world's troublespots - avoiding petrol bombs in Northern Ireland, leaping out of the way of sniper fire in Bosnia and coping with Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

As if dodging bullets were not tricky enough, being a woman made Adie's job even harder. At the start of her career, she says the interesting news stories were given to men while she was saddled with more 'woman-friendly' items such as produce shows.

She recalled: "I was an absolute disaster as a regional reporter. But it wasn't hard news. It was endless feature stuff as you did if you were a woman on regional news shows at the time.

"Women were barred from doing many things when I was coming on the market. The law didn't back you up on things like equal pay. But attitudes have changed enormously. It's a very different kind of world now."

There is little of Adie's private life present in her writing, apart from a brief discussion about being an adopted child. But she insists her personal relationships did not suffer as a result of her frequent trips abroad and dangerous assignments.

"I've had a settled life. You just cope, people commute for two or three hours a day and work horrendous long hours. I don't think what I do is that much different."

Adie presents herself as a woman with no regrets. Although she has seen enough horror to make anyone's blood curdle, she wouldn't change her life for a moment.

She added: "I have been very lucky. I have been to an enormous number of stories that I never had any thoughts about beforehand. I have never been one to brood about what-ifs and if-onlys.

"I'm not that sort of person."

Kate Adie will be signing copies of her autobiography at Waterstone's in James Street, Harrogate, from 12pm to 1pm on Tuesday, June 17, before giving a talk at Waterstone's in Albion Street, Leeds at 7pm the same day.

The Kindness Of Strangers is published by Headline, £7.99

Updated: 10:52 Wednesday, June 11, 2003