Kate Adie, journalist and author

Kate Adie is a journalist who became one of the best-known faces on British TV. She reported from many major wars. Soldiers joked that when Kate Adie arrived, they knew they were in trouble.

Before she became a journalist, she took a degree in Scandinavian Studies at Newcastle University. 'In the 1960s,' she said, 'Girls like me didn't have careers. They got jobs as nurses, teachers or typists and then they got married.'

When she had finished her degree, she applied for a job at the BBC as a studio technician in local radio. After that, she went on to produce farming and arts programmes for Radio Bristol. Then after she had worked in regional TV for a few years, she joined BBC TV News in London.

Her first big news story was the siege of the Iranian embassy in London in the 1980s. She was covering the nightshift also known as 'the nothing ever happens' shift when the siege happened. It was big news and made her famous. After that she was sent to cover Northern Ireland. 'Were you scared?' asked an interviewer once. 'No reporter I know doesn't get scared; people who don't get scared get hit,' Kate replied.

Kate Adie became one of the first women to report difficult and dangerous stories abroad. 'I never wanted to go into war zones,' she said. 'It just happened as part of the job.'

Nowadays things have changed. 'If I was a young journalist today, I wouldn't be reporting from the frontline,' she said. Instead of sending a camera crew, producer and reporter to cover an event now, broadcasters use agency crews based in the country who speak the language.