“Aren’t I supposed to be cross with you about something?” says John Humphrys, busying himself with making coffee. “What was it? I’ve forgotten… Do you want a banana?”

I’m OK for a banana, thanks. We’re in Humphrys’s homely kitchen in his house in west London. And yes, the long-serving co-presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme has been cross with me before. About a year ago, as the Observer’s radio reviewer, I’d written an article about the Today programme that wasn’t entirely complimentary, and Humphrys had fired off an angry email at me, making some points I agreed with, and several I didn’t. I answered, and, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, we ended up on fairly good terms. So now, here we are. I’m armed with umpteen readers’ questions for him – many hostile, I must say – and Humphrys is all set to answer them.

Now 76, wiry and fiery, dressed in cosy fleece, Humphrys finally retired from Today a week or so ago, after more than three decades at the helm during which he became the show’s best-known host. He’s published his memoirs to coincide with that retirement, and A Day Like Today is a 400-page doorstopper of a book that describes Humphrys’s early life growing up poor but proud in Splott, Wales, and moves through his career as a newspaper reporter, foreign correspondent and TV news presenter. It is very detailed on his years at Today (he joined in 1987, at the age of 43), which provide about two-thirds of the book. Though he doesn’t reveal much about his private life, he is straightforward in his opinions about other people: he doesn’t seem to like Eddie Mair or Jane Garvey very much, for instance.

“Eddie Mair is a brilliant broadcaster,” he says today, “but I dislike his style of broadcasting when applied to a hard news programme. And Jane Garvey is too opinionated for my taste. You shouldn’t lace questions with your own views, and Jane tells the listener what she thinks about everything. But then it is Woman’s Hour, not Today.”

This last point seems at the very least ironic, given that one reason Humphrys’s detractors dislike him is that they believe they can tell his opinion of interviewees by the way he interviews them. Humphrys argues hard to me that they can’t: though he’s assumed to be a Brexiteer, he voted remain, and he cites a time when a very good friend of his came on to Today, and Humphrys gave him a roasting. (It was Patrick Holden, then director of the Soil Association.)

Play Video 0:45 John Humphrys signs off from Today programme after 32 years – video

“I’ve known Patrick for 40 years,” he says, “and I believe in everything he’s done and does, I believe organic farming is vital, but when I interviewed him, I put the opposite argument to him. I am a devil’s advocate. That is what I do.”

John Humphrys, for many, came to epitomise both the good and bad about the Today programme. His tenacious interviewing style was admired when it was used to effect against politicians but, post-Brexit, as the country divided along non-party lines, many felt that his rottweiler questioning technique was used on the wrong people. And his interviews with non-politicians – fashion journalists, artists, authors, scientists – could seem naive, even inept. In his book, he admits that, though Today’s researchers always prepared him briefs for interviews, he mostly didn’t read them. Is this true?

“Yes,” he says. “I mean I am notoriously… ‘stupid’ is the only word. Mostly you don’t know what interviews you’re going to be doing until you see them, and the sensible thing to do is to sit down and read the brief very carefully. I don’t do that. It’s a sort of brinksmanship, and also I don’t want to already know the answers to my questions. Not with politicians, but if you’re talking to real people about real things – somebody who’s just swum the channel 19 times or something – then if you ask them a question that you genuinely don’t know the answer to, you are genuinely surprised.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Humphrys talking to David Cameron on his last day presenting Today. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/Reuters

He’s a strange mix, John Humphrys. He gets upset if presenters voice opinions, but is quick to give his own. He rues the BBC’s liberal bias, but is a natural liberal himself. He is, I think, a highly emotional man, who decries emotion in reporting. He seeks precise answers but sometimes struggles to articulate accurately what he wants to say. And, though he often falls foul of feminists, he is pro-women.

“I detest the word feminism, because of course I’m a feminist,” he says. “God, why does one have to say it? Obviously, obviously… Racism is a profoundly moral issue, as is feminism. That’s why I refused to wear one of those “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirts. No, it isn’t. This is what a white man looks like, who happens to believe that women are equal to men. I mean, even saying it makes you sound like a dickhead.”

You seem to prefer being interviewed by women, I say.

“I do,” he says. “Maybe I trust them more. I like talking to women.”

Are you more competitive with men?

“Yes! Of course. It’s instinctive, I think. It’s not learned. Or it might be. I went to an all-boys school.”

Humphrys runs a charity, the Kitchen Tables Charity Trust, which helps feed money to small charities in the developing world, mostly those that work with children. We talk a bit about it, how it works, and about his feelings around the misuse of power and the lack of respect for “ordinary” people. When he was a young journalist, he witnessed the tragedy at Aberfan – he thumps the table when he tells me about it – and saw terrible things, too, when he reported from South Africa.

“You see children dying of starvation, and you know, you know it’s because of men who want power,” he says. “Men who want power so much that they will do anything. And it is always the men. With our charity, we don’t give any money to men, ever. Because in our experience, if you give the money to a woman, whether it’s running a little business, or a school, or a charity, it’s used for good reasons. You give it to the man, it’s often pissed against the wall. I would always opt for women because I think they are more – this will get me in trouble with the right-thinking brigade – because I think women are more sensitive to the fear of abuse of childen. The ultimate measure of a society is first, how we deal with children, and second, how we deal with very old people who can’t help themselves. That’s how you judge the humanity of a society and humanity is what it is all about.”

Humphrys can’t help himself. He’s thumping the table again, already all riled up. Time, I think, for some readers’ questions, to keep that fire burning…

• A Day Like Today is published by William Collins (£20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

Melvyn Bragg

Broadcaster

You are the top of the tree and at the top of your form, why did you leave?

Because I’ve been doing it for 33 years and when you’re doing the Today programme it totally dominates you. It isn’t just the getting up at half past three in the morning and having to go to bed at half past eight at night. It’s all the other stuff. You’ve got to read all the newspapers, or try to. You’ve got to keep in touch with everything that’s happening all the time. And that dominates your life. And I’ve had enough of that.

Michael Carter

Observer reader

Are you ready for the adjustment in your whole life or will you end up at the kitchen table interrogating breakfast cereals by the dawning light?

[Laughs] No, I’m not ready. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know why I’m going to do what I’m going to do, or how I’m going to do it, or where it’s going to be done, or who it is going to be done with. And that’s the glory of it. New vistas are open to me. And yes, I’ll probably end up arguing with the DHL man.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Humphrys, left, looks on as fellow broadcasters meet the Queen at Broadcasting House in 2006. Photograph: Anwar Hussein Collection/Getty Images

Kate Losowsky

Observer reader

Who do you wish you’d interviewed and never got the chance to, and why?

I’m not a royalist, but: the Queen. She is unique. I got invited to one of these private lunches – note, private lunches – three others and me, with Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh. And after we’d had the lunch, I did ask her if she would do an interview with me. She likes to take her coffee, not in the dining room, but in the adjoining room so she can throw bits of food to her doggies. I wondered why she said it in such a posh way, but it’s dorgis, she explained to me. Dachshund corgi, join it together, dorgis. Anyway, I asked her for an interview and I went into a big spiel and said, these are the reasons why you could, you know? And she listened to me very patiently and she said: “No… And what’s more, Mr Humphrys, if one were ever to do such an interview, it would certainly not be with you.”

Jenni Murray

Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour

What’s the most important question that needs to be put to Boris Johnson, and what answer would you expect to get?

That’s a killer, isn’t it? Curse you, Jenni… How about: “You tell lies routinely. Do you know you’re doing that?” In a sense it would be a pointless question, because he’d say “flhmpthflfhfhhhmph” [posh waffly Johnson-style noise], but then you’d follow up with, you know, “an inverted pyramid of piffle”. And in the process of taking apart his denials, you would get somewhere, I think.

Miranda Sawyer: Were you shocked that Johnson didn’t come on when you were on Today?

Ha! I retire and within days, he’s on.

Diana Fowler

Observer reader

I would like to know what John Humphrys thinks the UK will gain should we leave the EU.

I don’t know. It’s much easier to say what we’ll gain, or at least, keep if we don’t leave the union. But obviously we must, and I speak as somebody who voted to remain.

MS: Why do you think people think you voted for Brexit?

I’ve no idea! My reasons to vote to remain are many and varied, and largely to do with, you know, no more war in western Europe and being born in 1943, and all that kind of thing. But people who voted to leave were more… passionate is such a ghastly word… more motivated than those who voted remain, because they really did, I think, believe in sovereignty and freedom. Largely, those arguments did not resonate with me. What worries me is that there will be trouble if we don’t leave, unless there is something pretty concrete in its place. Not riots in the street, but if people are told: “You voted, but now you can just fuck off and die,” that’s worrying.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Humphrys photographed at his home in London. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

Matthew Lenton

Observer reader

What are your feelings about the effect your earning so much more than them had on your female colleagues, particularly Sarah Montague?

Sarah was upset and she was right to be upset. Absolutely right. I didn’t know how much she was earning. I have never talked to any other presenter on the Today programme about how much we earn. I think Sarah’s wonderful. But we never had a conversation about our pay.

MS: Not even after it had come out?

No. I suppose it is odd in a way. But no. I can’t explain it.

MS: There’s another part to this question… What are your thoughts on whether you might have volunteered to take a very large pay cut?

I did volunteer. Three times. The first time was when I went back on to the staff, because I’d gone freelance in my mid-30s, when the BBC were keen on making you do it. I regretted it because it meant you had to set up a company and all that kind of crap, which I hated. But they made you do it. I’ve still got the bloody memo saying: “If you don’t set up a company we can’t pay you.” I got rid of my private company and became a sole trader because I did not like the idea of not paying tax. And the BBC in the end accepted that I could do that legitimately and they could pay me.

MS: Why do you think the BBC wanted journalists to set up as companies?

We’re talking about nearly 40 years ago, of course, but I think it was a ruse by the BBC at the time to avoid paying national insurance. Where were we? I’ve forgotten the question.

MS: You taking a pay cut…

Yes. I’d always thought we should have disclosed our pay, I know I sound like goody two shoes, but it is the case. The important one was when it was announced that presenters’ pay was going to be revealed. I had a chat with James Harding and he said: “There’s going to be a disparity.” And I said: “Well, I’ll cut my pay,” and I think I went down, I don’t know, a hundred grand. A lot, anyway. And that was that. But they’d left it too late and when the pay was announced, though I’d taken a pay cut, my pay was announced as, I think £650,000. And it made me the sixth- or seventh-highest paid. It was Mastermind, and my previous salary. And later, two years after that, I volunteered another cut. I ended up with earning about half what I had been earning. I’m not ashamed of it.

Ayesha Hazarika

Former Labour adviser, commentator

You’re known for your strong views. Do you think it’s right that the BBC found against Naga Munchetty for pointing out how a lot of people of colour interpret the phrase: “Go back”?

Naga Munchetty was absolutely right to – I hate the expression – but to “call out” Trump the racist. Absolutely no doubt about that, it was a racist thing to say. But for Dan [Walker] to invite her then to analyse Trump’s motives, I would be uncomfortable with that, as a presenter. If you’re talking to a political correspondent, like Jon Sopel, then I would ask: “What do you think is behind that, then? Why are they doing that?” And that is a totally valid question for a specialist, an expert, who would know much more than you do about the political situation... But I’m slightly uneasy about one presenter asking that of another presenter. Only because of the position that the presenter holds – which is that of observer, rather than an analyst. I’m not dogmatic about this, by the way, I’m trying to work it through.

MS: But if you aren’t white and you live in a majority white environment, you’re automatically an expert on racism. I mean, just through walking through the world.

That’s true. Of course, of course. But you’re not an expert in Donald Trump’s political motives. And that’s… there is a difference there. It’s quite a subtle one, but there is a difference. I think.

I’m not massively proud of how I’ve been a father John Humphrys

MS: Do you think the BBC handled the situation badly?

Yes. The BBC invariably handles these things badly. It’s because the BBC’s strengths are also its weaknesses. It’s just that the BBC is not didactic. It isn’t an authoritarian organisation. So there cannot be a single clear BBC view. And I think that’s reassuring.

Michael Kemp

Observer reader

Which interviewee surprised you the most, and why?

It was an old woman. I went back to South Africa when they had the first Mandela elections. They’d opened the polling booths a day early for old people, people in wheelchairs, pregnant women, so they wouldn’t be crushed to death in the queue. And I went out too and there were massive, massive queues… oh, it was deeply moving. And I looked for somebody who looked like promising material for a live interview. I settled on a very old lady – she looked about 90 – standing next to a young woman, who was very pregnant. I wanted a bit of righteous anger, a bit of: “These bastards, apartheid,” all that kind of thing. And 8.10 came and I did a little introduction and I said to the old lady: “You’re going to be voting soon, what does it mean to you?” And she quietly said: “Mmm, for me, not very much.” And I thought: “Oh, shit.” And then she hesitated for a moment and she leaned across and patted the swollen stomach of the young woman, and she said: “But for the young man in this lady’s stomach, it will mean everything. Because he will be granted the gift of dignity that has been denied to me all my life.” And it was… amazing.

Hugh Stokes

Observer reader

Do you feel you ever crossed the line into editorialising, by making contentious statements or challenging interviewees with opinions, particularly in relation to Brexit or climate change?

Well, the answer is obviously yes, there’s yet to be a presenter born who hasn’t crossed that line. Also, if you put a contentious view to an interviewee, it doesn’t matter whether you say: “This is the view held by Joe Bloggs,” the audience will hear your voice saying: “There’s no such thing as climate change,” and they’ll think you believe it and will say: “What a wanker he is.” Quite rightly. Except that you haven’t said it, you’ve attributed to somebody else. But yes, sometimes you will get a bit… you go over the top.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Humphrys with fellow today presenter Sue MacGregor in the programme’s production office, 1993. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images

MS: What about tone? People react so differently to your tone.

Well, over the years you establish a relationship with somebody like Heseltine, or John Prescott, or Tony Blair, and you know what to expect and then you have that sort of conversation. That is inevitably going to upset a lot of people who might regard Tony Blair or John Prescott as the spawn of Satan. They will react, because we all hear everything in different ways, don’t we? You are allowed to express controversial views that may not be your own, and I think, for instance, Justin Webb got short-changed over that when he interviewed Nigel Lawson about global warming.

MS: People didn’t want Nigel Lawson on at all, because he’s a climate change denier.

Quite. I’ve always hated the word denier because it makes it sound like climate change is a religion.

MS: The word is used in the same way as Holocaust denier. The Holocaust happened. Climate change is happening.

That is true, but there was a very long period of time when we didn’t know that it was happening. The Holocaust has never been, ever, in any doubt, at all.

Samira Ahmed

Broadcaster

Lots of people probably ask you for advice because of your experience, but what you would say is the most important thing you’ve learned from younger staff members?

I know inevitably that I am not going to be “in touch” with young people, in spite of the fact that I have children and grandchildren. Obviously I have a set of prejudices, of attitudes that have developed over the past 76 years. Working with so many young people – and by young, I’m afraid I mean anybody under the age of 30 – it’s like you enter into another world. You always learn something.

Jamesread

Observer reader, posted online

Is it appropriate to holiday with David Davis and then also to interview him at 8:10 on numerous occasions for a nice cosy chat about Brexit?

All those holidays, David Davis and I, they’ve all come as news to me. This is the glory of Twitter. There was a bloke who worked for David Davis for a couple of years, and then had a nervous breakdown of some sort, and appeared on Twitter sounding off about various things, including the “fact” that I had gone on holiday with David Davis. But I’ve had lunch with David Davis twice in the 35 years that I’ve known him, and that’s it.

MS: Who do you go on holiday with, John?

I don’t go on holiday very often, unfortunately. Ideally with my partner. I’ve never been on a holiday with a politician. I can’t imagine anything worse. In my 33 years on the Today programme, I’ve had lunch with, maybe… half a dozen?

MS: Who would they be?

One of them was the chancellor after Geoffrey Howe… Norman Lamont. OK, so I’ve had lunch with David Davis. I’ve had lunch with Norman Lamont. I’ve had lunch with, I can’t remember this guy’s name, but he was a very senior figure in Blair’s administration. I had tea in the House of Commons with Gordon Brown. I had a coffee in his office with Tony Blair, in his office in the House of Commons. I think that’s it. No Theresa May, no Maggie Thatcher, no Cameron, none of his lot.

The management thing is where the BBC goes wrong. It has been hideously under-managed by women John Humphrys

MS: What about newspaper proprietors and editors? Do you ever lunch with them?

I’ve had lunch with a few. Dacre, at Dacre Towers, as it was all those years ago. Once. People like Charles Moore and… oh, I had dinner once with the last editor of the Guardian. What’s his name? Plays the piano.

MS: Alan Rusbridger.

Yes. I had dinner with Alan Rusbridger. I am not a great socialiser.

Sophie Walker

Founder of the Women’s Equality party

Do you think you would have had the same success and earning power at the BBC if you’d been a woman?

No, not in the early days. It’s difficult. Kate Adie was a little bit older than me and she was far more successful than me in the early days. She’s bloody good. And because she was a woman, and an extremely courageous woman, and brilliant, Kate brought something to her reporting that I would not have been able to bring. The management thing is where the BBC goes wrong. It has been hideously under-managed by women, especially when you consider the women who have worked there – Helen Boaden, for instance, who I wanted to be director general... I’ve been banging on for 15 years about we must have a female director general. No female director general, ever? It’s shocking.

Robert Jones

Observer reader

Would you encourage any young person to go into journalism today?

I wouldn’t be encouraging, no, because it is an immensely competitive field. When my son wanted to be a cellist, he had an audition at the Royal College, and I went in with him to turn the pages of the music. When he finished, the tutor said: “Hmm, I would advise you not to become a professional cellist.” You can imagine my son’s face. And then the tutor said: “Unless doing anything else would make you very unhappy.” That’s corny, but that’s how I feel about journalism.

Rows, bloopers and scoops: John Humphrys’ 32 years at Today Read more



hotfeet

Observer reader, posted online

You are happy to promote the Daily Mail. You trust them with the story of your life. Do you observe any political bias in the Daily Mail?

This is about the serialisation of my book extracts in the Mail. The deal was done by the publisher.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Presenting Today with Evan Davis in 2011. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

MS: Did the Mail show you the edited version of the extracts?

Yes. They did and they not only did that, but they also sought my approval. I was not particularly happy with the splash [the headline] the Mail used, but you know… I don’t give a flying fuck whether people think that a particular newspaper is biased in this way or that way. All I’m concerned with is that my material is presented in the way I’ve written it and they didn’t change a word.

MS: Do you understand why some people don’t like the Daily Mail?

I have always read the Daily Mail as a journalist because it speaks to an awful lot of people. Its views may in some cases not be compatible with mine. As the views of the Guardian are sometimes not compatible with mine. People should be able to read views other than their own, or their own views, whichever they choose. They have the choice. And if you’re going to say the Mail is a vicious, pernicious, hideous, biased, prejudiced, cruel, wicked newspaper, then that’s fine. You’re entitled to say that. I don’t happen to believe that; its campaigns around plastic or people with dementia or racism – Stephen Lawrence – are exemplary. But to say that the 5 million people who read the Daily Mail are themselves somehow inferior to, let us say, the people who read the Guardian or the Observer… that is grotesque. It is hugely offensive. I mean, I know people who read the Daily Mail whom I like.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Former chief rabbi

In his most recent book, the New York Times columnist David Brooks talks about how people scale two mountains in their lives. The main part of their lives is focused on the self – being a success, making a mark – but having reached the pinnacle of the first mountain, they sometimes find it unsatisfying or empty, and realise that there are even bigger things in life that they want to achieve. And so they climb the second mountain, one focused on things that have real value. John, having reached the pinnacle of your first mountain, what second mountain are you planning to climb?

I wouldn’t often say this of Jonathan Sacks, who is a deeply thoughtful man, but he’s wrong, the underlying assumption of the question is wrong. I haven’t scaled a mountain. I’ve been successful because I’ve done a job well enough to stay in the job for a long time, and if you stay in any job for long enough, you get respect for the fact that you survived. But I haven’t done anything that I think when… when my children, grandchildren and partner, whoever, stand around my death bed, I’d be able to say: “You see, I did that.” And one’s hope is that one might do something, and it could be something immensely small but important, but I don’t feel I have yet.

MS: What are you planning to do that might be that thing?

Well, maybe… trees? I’m a guy who has planted a few woodlands in my time, and I would love to find out something about woodlands, about trees, just from observation and talking to lots of people who know, but that’s an interest rather than a mountain to climb.

MS: It’s a crucial interest at the moment.

But more important than that, I’ve been a very average father. I’ve provided and all that, but I’ve never felt that I’ve been… I’m not massively proud of how I’ve been a father… I’ve excused my personal behaviour, the way that I’ve related to and treated the people who are closest and most important to me. And obviously my children are top of that list.

MS: How was your wife about you being away a lot? [Humphrys married Edna Wilding in 1964. They divorced in the late 80s and she died in 1997.]

My wife was a nurse, and she helped to run the first spina bifida unit in the country – for some reason there’s a very high incidence of spina bifida in south Wales. And so she was doing an important job, much more important than my job. And when she became pregnant, I said: “What do you want to do?” She said: “I want to give up work, and I do not intend to work again until the kids are at university.” I can remember where we had the conversation. It was a mutual decision. I mean, it suited me perfectly because then I could go away, and of course she always did work at schools, voluntary stuff. But it meant that I missed stuff with the kids. I mean, when I first became a foreign correspondent, it meant being away for months at a time. Then the Today programme came along, and that meant working stupid hours. And so you haven’t got time. I now have time and I hope that I’ll use that time more… meaningfully. God, this sounds wishy-washy!

Mike Morris

Observer reader

In an interview with Helen McEntee on 26 January, you said Irish exports to the UK were about 50% of total exports. It’s actually about 13% to 14%. Were you troubled by that sort of basic factual error or do you feel your “interviewing style” was more important?

Of course I’m troubled about any factual errors. It is what I was told, and I repeated it, I probably should’ve gone back over it in some detail and it did slip through the net. But that’s nothing to do with my interview style.

malarkey

Observer reader, posted online

Why are you so suspicious of art?

I’m not! You’d have to be a moron to be suspicious of art. When I see a Turner masterpiece or listen to a piece of Bach or read a wonderful book, I am swept away. But I am sceptical about, for instance, found art. I don’t understand how something becomes art because someone important says it’s art. It’s such an interesting conversation but it gets you nowhere. I can’t help feeling that Damien Hirst is not worthy of being in the same room as Turner, but my knowledge is not huge. It’s more heart than head for me, disgracefully, because it’s instinctive.

Play Video 0:45 John Humphrys signs off from Today programme after 32 years – video

James Atkinson

Observer reader

Were you open about your conservative views with your editors when you were presenter on the Today programme? And did they try to compensate in any way?

That is such a stupid question. I am not conservative, you know. I am genuinely one of those pathetic people who has very strong views about issues. I think it’s quite difficult to be a hack for as long as I’ve been and come out of that with firm politics. I’m a reporter and my views are informed by what I see and the people I talk to. So every other bloody week I change my mind about something or other, and when you vote, you look for the party that comes closest to what you believe.

Simon Mayo

DJ

Why did you insist on wearing the worst headphones in the world?

Because, Simon, because when I’m sitting in a studio, I want to hear what the interviewee is saying, and those headphones enable me to do that. But they also let me communicate with the person sitting on my left, and I like to be able to communicate with my fellow presenters, as well as with the outside world. If I was in a studio by myself, then maybe I would have those bloody headphones that make you look like a pensioned-off airline pilot. But – get a life, Mayo!