So when a production company (Lion TV, in this case), along with BBC Two, asked me if I would be interested in presenting a documentary on Pompeii, why on Earth did I say yes? Partly because it would have been cowardly to say no. I may have had serious doubts about television, but I had also sounded off regularly about how very bloke-ish it was (think of Simon Schama and David Starkey and all those other male presenters), and how television history had almost no place for women over 50, unless they were nuns (though that’s changing, I think). Now that I had got an offer, it would have been hypocritical to turn it down. Besides, there were all kinds of things I was keen to say about ancient Pompeii, and I liked the idea of reaching a wider audience than a book is ever likely to do. So we agreed some basic ground rules: there was to be no one getting dressed up in a toga in this programme, and no CGI of the eruption of Vesuvius, no Disney Pompeii. Then off we went.