Sue Cook’s father is 97, her mother is 95 and her grandmother lived until she was 107. At 65, she (half) jokes that if she continues in the family tradition, she could be looking at another 30 years on this Earth, and points out – in that very gentle, but firm manner we so remember from programmes such as Crimewatch – that it would be nice to use them productively.

While it’s lovely to be able to embrace semi-retirement (she’s just back from a holiday in India, and talks of the joys of gardening, writing books and ‘fiddling about doing freelance things’) there is a sadness there.

She’s not doing what she once considered her forte: broadcasting. Indeed, she’s recently taken to calling herself a writer/broadcaster rather than broadcaster/writer, which means some line has been crossed. ‘I very rarely broadcast now,’ she admits.

Sue Cook was a BBC stalwart for 20 years - then the work simply dried up. And she's still bristling about it

‘What was the last thing? Oh gosh. Children In Need? That was ages ago – 20 years. I did Collectors’ Lot on Channel 4, but that wasn’t even live. Maybe the Chelsea Flower Show, when Channel 4 had it. That was live. That was fun. But when you think about it, actually, it’s been a shockingly long time.’

She was a team captain on a recent celebrity edition of University Challenge, which doesn’t count as presenting but did get her back onto familiar territory, and she clearly adored it. ‘I do love being back in the studio. I always feel at home there.’

Many TV presenters who have somehow drifted off the television claim they’re glad to be rid of it. But Sue, for so long a BBC stalwart, doesn’t. For 20 years she was one of the BBC’s safest pairs of hands on live TV, a regular first on Nationwide and Breakfast Time, then Children In Need and Crimewatch, which she co-presented with Nick Ross for 11 years until 1995, when she was replaced by Jill Dando.

She talks of feeling the ‘sting of bereavement’ at adjusting to life outside the industry, even if she has gone on to success in other fields, particularly fiction writing (she’s currently researching her third book).

And yes, she would leap at the chance to go back. If anything, she says, she’d be a better operator now. ‘It’s the irony, isn’t it? My children [son Charlie Williams, by her former husband John Williams, the classical guitarist, and daughter Megan Macqueen, by children’s TV producer Billy Macqueen, who Sue lived with for 15 years] are now in their twenties. For the first time in my life I haven’t got any real ties. I’ve got so much more time than I had ten or 20 years ago, which is when you’re trying to juggle everything.’

Such is the cruel reality of being a woman in the world of television. Just as you’re reaching your professional best – pffft! – you’re off. It’s an old chestnut of an issue that keeps coming back – most recently when Mariella Frostrup complained about finding herself out of favour once the big 5-0 struck.

Sue was there first. And yes, since you ask, she is a bit peeved. Not in the same way that someone like Miriam O’Reilly, who took legal action against the BBC after being dropped from Countryfile, was peeved, but then there was no definitive ‘letting go’ of Sue. No great, high-profile sacking.

She talks of feeling the 'sting of bereavement' at adjusting to life outside the industry, even if she has gone on to success in other fields, particularly fiction writing

Contracts just weren’t renewed. She just kind of slipped away. She talks understandingly about how tastes do change and TV is subject to the same whims as fashion (she says the breed of presenter who came after her was much more ‘jump up and down’, and she once overheard a producer say she needed to ‘stick a rocket up her bum’).

‘I don’t necessarily agree with what Miriam did. I think producers have to be free to have the people they want as presenters, but I do think it’s a shame that the people at the top aren’t seeing how vital it is to have older women in the high-profile positions. I don’t think that the lack of older women is doing any favours to women viewers.’

She points out that today’s 60-something viewers expect to see themselves reflected on screen – and are being let down when they don’t. ‘I mean, look how society has changed. My mother’s generation had given up by this age. Let’s face it, they were pretty elderly by the time they reached their sixties.

'Our generation is very different. We’re still dressing young, keeping fit. We all look much younger than the previous generation did – and TV isn’t reflecting that. When you see advertisements for anything that refers to pensioners, you instantly get a picture of a grey-haired little old lady. Nothing could be further from today’s 60-year-olds than that.’

But are things changing in the industry? Look at Gloria Hunniford and Angela Rippon on BBC1’s Rip Off Britain. Women who happen to be grandmothers can be visible, it seems. Sue disagrees. She cuttingly refers to Rip Off Britain as ‘that ghetto-ey programme they put Angela Rippon and [former presenter] Jennie Bond and Julia Somerville in. But they put them on one programme – which no one got to see anyway. You didn’t know what time it was on. That was a bit naughty, really. They were trying to tick the box with that one. And who else is there? Esther Rantzen still does a bit, but not much. Who else?’

Quite. It’s a very British thing, putting our female TV stars out to pasture, particularly in the current affairs side of TV. Sue points out that ‘in the States, you’ve got people like Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. Single anchorwomen are given a lot more respect. We don’t do that over here, do we? Men can go on for a long time, but women still have to be one of a duo, if they’re there at all.’

Of course the TV industry has always been sexist. Sue leapt up and down about it herself, in her day, most famously objecting when she discovered that her Crimewatch co-star Nick Ross was paid more than her. ‘I did make a stand,’ she recalls. ‘It made me feel really tacky but I just thought I had to do it. They ended up giving me £50 less as opposed to £250 less.’

Obviously, the failings at the BBC a few decades ago have been very much back in the news recently, with Operation Yewtree and its fallout. Sue – with her prim and proper image, not to mention the lingering associations with Crimewatch – might seem like the most unlikely person to be embroiled, but she found herself bang in the middle of it when she was called as a witness for the defence in the Rolf Harris trial. It happened quite by chance, she explains, when she was watching the news and saw that Rolf was being called a liar after apparently forgetting he had once recorded a television programme, Star Games, in Cambridge.

It actually sounds as if Sue is having quite a blast in this phase of her life. Twice-divorced, she's found happiness

Sue was shocked to realise she too had been involved in that show. ‘I remember saying to my husband that it wasn’t fair to say he must have been lying because I too had done that programme – and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what city we were in. It was one of those shows where you were bussed in from outside.’

The next day, Harris’s defence team got in touch and asked if she would be prepared to appear for the defence. Some might have run a mile from that one. She says she agreed ‘out of a sense of fair play’. ‘I don’t really know Rolf. I’d only met him once or twice, and yes I was shocked to hear all the accusations against him. But to call him a liar on that point, I didn’t think it was fair.’

Interestingly, while she doesn’t challenge the Rolf Harris verdict, and makes a point of saying she doesn’t want to comment on individual cases, she does have strong views on whether some of these historic cases should be pursued. ‘My feeling is that these were crimes committed 30 years ago, and are now being presented in the wrong context. You’re looking backwards, through a telescope. What we have now are old men being hounded out of their houses, their computers taken. Is it right?’ She clearly has her doubts.

Does she recognise the view of the TV industry that’s being presented from those days, though? It sounds debauched, sexist, terrible. ‘No, I absolutely don’t recognise it. It wasn’t debauched and terrible, or if it was I didn’t see it. Some things were undoubtedly sexist, yes. You got the hand on the knee sort of thing. I got my bra strap pinged once – that came up in a trial, didn’t it? It wasn’t nice but I dealt with it and carried on. I think there’s a tendency for these things to look worse than they were, viewed backwards.’

Did she ever complain about sexism, aside from the equal pay issue? ‘Once. Someone who had influence over my career made some advances and when I turned him down I did worry about it. I went to see a superior and said, “Look this has happened, and I’m worried about what he’ll say about me now, and whether it will affect my career.” I was told not to worry, it was sorted.’