lives turned upside down. It came into my parents’ lives and they weren’t combatants, they weren’t soldiers, they weren’t the so-called front lines. War comes into people’s lives and it doesn’t happen in “Another Place”, it happens among decent, ordinary people.’ The desire to tell the truth still burns fiercely, except it is no longer delivered from in front of a camera but through her books. The latest, Fighting on the Home Front, explores the legacy of women in WWI. ‘It’s important to understand why women were fighting for their rights and why there was such a need for something like the WI. They had a rotten time, their legal position was poor, their education was minimal and girls were often taken out of school early to go into service. Until they were married, BBC/WILLIE SMITH they had nothing but manual, back-breaking work and there were no opportunities for them. Image: ‘You have to understand that to see why the usually prefaced with the query suffrage movement got quite so agitated and ‘as a woman’. She says: ‘There are determined to do something to improve women’s still hugely male areas of power, lot and for them to have a say in society. To influence and affluence that a lot appreciate how far we’ve come you have to of women are nowhere near, so know where we started.’ I think it’s probably inevitable Kate rates the WI very highly. ‘The WI does well that you get asked if you’ve moved because it’s still sticking to its original principles,’ through those worlds. she says, ‘which are practical rather than merely ‘I’ve never considered myself to social – a group of women who came together with be a different kind of journalist the desire to make lives better, particularly for rural because I’m a woman.

KEN LENNOX women. In a country that cares furiously for its ‘I come from a generation countryside yet has to strive to keep it as we’d like where women weren’t really Image: it, I think this is very important.’ expected to have careers. Kate has settled in her own rural idyll, in deepest People have forgotten how much . ‘I’m part of a village and I love it. It’s progress we have made in the last immensely enthusiastic and it’s friendly. When half century – more with regard I first came to London I missed the easy-going to women’s expectations, their northern friendliness that I grew up with.’ opportunities and what they She enjoys her busy pace of life, making have been allowed to do and have documentaries, attending literary festivals had to fight to do. Life beyond and presenting BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own ‘It has been a very swift change Correspondent, which allows reporters to share in a fundamental position offbeat stories from around the world. for half the population; it’s a ‘I choose to do what I do. Reporting really massive revolution and it’s not through yet. Top: as the BBC chief changed into a presentation job in which journalistic ‘There is still no affordable childcare; there is still news correspondent, the front line skills are quite secondary in some instances, so a 19th-century view of going to work, of commuting Kate Adie was at the Away from her stellar career reporting from war zones, Kate Adie now relishes I thought “Go and do something else”.’ and sitting in an office; there are still people asking forefront in reporting Kate is also patron of four charities. These cover how can a woman have both a job and a family. the dramatic siege of village life but has lost none of her campaigning zeal for a fairer world the Iranian Embassy areas ranging from establishing schools and small ‘That is a question for society to determinedly in London, 1980 businesses in Africa, to preventing re-offending make provision for, to say that everything must Interview by LUCY COLLINS Above: an admirer of in Dorset, and helping be valued. the WI, Kate spoke at children who are stranded ‘Women are as capable as our Centennial Fair in or two decades Kate Adie ricocheted extraordinary determination to make things better, in institutions around the I’ve been struck anyone else and should be Harrogate last year around the world reporting from war get a country back on its feet, sort your family out, world to find families that given job opportunities – we zones. From Tiananmen Square to the help other people. I’ve seen an amazing amount of they can live with. by human have got to work out a way of Rwandan genocide, she was at the heart that so I’m hugely in favour of the human race. ‘I like to fill the day doing getting the best for everyone, of the action as the BBC’s first female ‘There are the dark spots but I’ve found as a interesting, enjoyable resilience and the not saying women must make chief news correspondent. journalist, it’s staggering how kind and how very things. I read a huge range sacrifices; it must be the best We’re used to seeing her in a hard hat and flak humane people are.’ of non-fiction, history extraordinary for everyone. jacketF but she’s rocking an electric-blue dress and Kate was a war baby, conceived outside marriage and good contemporary ‘There ought to be more leather biker jacket as she strides into The Langham and adopted as an infant. She had a happy childhood fiction. I don’t like the fluffy fairness in society. It’s a good Hotel in London to meet me. in , but the reminders of conflict were stuff.’ Chick lit? I venture determination to word to use rather than the She is a deliberate, precise speaker and, I learn ever-present. ‘I grew up in a house that had been mischievously. I’m given mechanical one of equality. quickly, dismissive of the assumptions people bombed. There was glass down the back of the sofa short shrift. ‘Pointless.’ make things better; ‘Fairness, equality in law make about how witnessing appalling tragedies has and the sideboard had bits of a 1,000lb Luftwaffe Social media? ‘No. A lot and equality of opportunities, affected her. ‘So many people appear to have a rather bomb embedded in its walnut. I’ve still got a piece. of social media… is the it’s staggering how but also how tasks are shared negative view, saying, “You must have seen terrible ‘What war seems to be to me, where I’ve voice of shouting.’ out, how chances to do things things, therefore you must be a wreck”, which is experienced it, is life lived at a terrible and violent Kate is relaxed about kind and humane fall to you. Ask yourself, a ludicrously shallow take on life,’ she says. extreme. It’s a complete myth that it’s confined to the fact that questions is it fair, and if it isn’t, do ‘I’ve been struck by human resilience and the a battlefield. War is among us, it’s ordinary human regarding her career are people are something about it.’

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