Opening her speech Kate Adie said she was not a professional or in business, but was in a trade and in this trade life was very different. You don't get nice hotels and conferences, in a war zone the windows are always open and the air was fresh because there are no windows. Machine gun fire was the alternative to the crowing cock. The trade was not glamorous and she once had to rely on Martin Bell's old bath water to wash in.

She said that she never dreamed of being a reporter. As she entered her late teens, her focus was on cookery and secretarial courses before meeting 'Mr Right'.

Kate commented that she had by-passed her A levels and got into university via the university ˜cat flap', ie a connection to study Swedish and Ancient Icelandic.

Her career at the BBC started in local radio at the time when it was just starting and this was considered to be a chance for people with no conventional qualifications to join the BBC, ie being an Oxbridge educated man. Kate remarked that she learnt everything she knew from local radio where you had to be careful and accurate.

She stressed throughout that it was the audience who were key in forming opinions, she just delivered the information. When she moved into TV, she discovered that in order to succeed it was important to have energy as well as enthusiasm and to grab every opportunity. Journalism is an opportunity for people who are nosey parkers. Kate admitted that she felt she developed her interest in people and their lives through her adoptive father, a small businessman with a pharmacy, who gave her the opportunity to meet so many people and overhear stories.

Kate admitted that she was not attracted to danger as she was a "5 foot 8 chicken" and does get frightened but finds the job fascinating and competative.  During her career the military regarded journalists as the ˜Lemming Unit' who gained the acronym PONTIs, Persons of No Technical Importance Whatsoever. 

At the end of her speech Kate pointed out that it was important to challenge the media in order to make it more democratic.

During the Q&A session she highlighted how war was dirty, vicious, full of deceit, betrayal and fuelled by alcohol. She commented that it was a myth about things getting worse just because the cameras came out.  Kate stated that she didn't feel she would have been able to get the same job if she were growing up today due to the extreme competition and the experience required.