Kate Adie as the BBC's chief news correspondent became one of the best-known faces on television for her reporting from the major wars of recent years. They include the Gulf War, the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Rwanda, China and Sierra Leone.

She has been shot three times. A bullet nicked her elbow in Beijing, killing the man next to her. She still has shrapnel and a bullet lodged in her toe from her days in Bosnia.

She is now in great demand as a conference keynote and after dinner speaker and her books Corsets to Camouflage Women and War and Kindness to Strangers are now both international best sellers.