Why do people do jobs that put their lives in danger? Reporter Kate Adie is coming to Birmingham to give us some answers.

There was a joke among soldiers in the British army that if BBC reporter Kate Adie turned up on the scene, they knew they were in trouble. If she was arriving somewhere on a plane, then it was time for everyone else to leave.

From the way she has been seen reporting from the frontline of places like Bosnia and Iraq, it would seem she is an intrepid journalist, never so happy as when she is dodging bullets in the troubled spots of the world.

This assumption is wide of the mark. In fact Kate, despite wearing the wounds of her work, claims she never chose to be in dangerous situations.

Tomorrow she arrives in Birmingham as part of Birmingham Book Festival, in partnership with The Birmingham Post, to speak about people she interviewed for her latest book Into Danger, Risking Your Life for Work.

“I never desired to be in dangerous situations,” she said.

“That was a driver for writing the book – to find out what motivates people who do.”

Kate’s book included interviews with a snake venom collector, a food taster, a terrorist, an armed robber, a hostage negotiator, prostitute and a bomb disposal officer to name but a few.

It does not include an interview with a journalist, but there again Kate does not see herself as being in a dangerous job.

This is despite being the reporter of the 1980 siege of the Iranian embassy.

She was first on the scene as the Special Air Service stormed the embassy and she reported live and unscripted to one of the largest news audiences ever while crouched behind a car door.

She went on to report on the American bombing of Tripoli in 1986, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the Gulf War, war in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the war in Sierra Leone in 2000.

For this she has been rewarded with an OBE, three RTS awards, the Bafta Richard Dimbleby Award, and the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting – and a shot in the leg in Bosnia and in the collar bone in Libya.

But still she says she never chose to be in dangerous situations and certainly does not miss them now she is no longer doing front-line reporting.

“The difference between journalists and the military, is that we can always say ‘no’,” she says.

“Soldiers have to go over the top, out of the trench.

“Journalists can say: ‘I just don’t think so,’ when asked to go into a dangerous situation. I have yet to meet the editor who would ever be able to order somebody into danger.

“Pressure to deliver a story may reach great intensity, but it is highly resistible in the face of your own demise.

“Besides, editors have no alternative but to accept a journalist saying ‘ I don’t’ think so’ when you have to get the story back.

“If there’s going to be any sort of story at the end of the day you need your vital bits and breath in your body in order to write it.”

Kate sees the role of a journalist as reporting on danger rather than facing it.

“The point I feel is that we don’t actually have to face it, we have to go and find out what’s going on,” she says.

“If you see something and it’s all kicking off somewhere, it’s not your job to go and deal with it.

“You don’t bear responsibility for going and sorting things out. You go and find out what’s happening and as a consequence, you’re normally a bit back from the trouble.

“So often people ask me, ‘how often do you feel the need to intervene?’

“I have to honestly say it’s so very rare that that circumstance arises, even though people seem to think it comes up regularly.

“You’re a bit back, you’re watching what happens, trying to keep out, bringing the story back and being in one piece.”

The same cannot be said of many of the people she interviewed.

For each person she asks the same question: “You do it in the name of what?”

The replies are varied.

The hostage negotiator says: “I was paid to do it – it was my job. I think I can do it better than other people.

“I think I was able to communicate with and to win the trust of those who were decision-makers as well as those who were victims.

“I felt I was able to make a contribution in a very difficult situation.”

A female stunt worker says: “Maybe in the name of women. Years ago the guys used to do it all – even doubling Sophia Loren.

“It was so obvious, but it’s great now that women are coming through, because the world is changing.”

The armed robber says: “Greed.”

“The interesting thing was that there was absolutely no universal theme, except for the manner of the answer.

“Every single one of them came out instantly, without a moment’s need for reflection, not one of them,” says Kate.

“They came straight out with it, which fascinated me. I thought some of them might sit and contemplate but they had it at the forefront of their minds, which showed that they’d thought about it.

“They knew they faced danger and why they confronted it.”

A touching addition to her list is the prostitute, who faces danger in ways far removed from the heroism and sometimes bravado of her other interviewees.

“I thought I would look at it from the straight forward point of view, without being judgemental,” says Kate.

“The horrifying thing about prostitution, where women in particular face enormous danger, is that they are just ignored.

“The danger is just considered to be of no consequence, but they are human beings and they go into danger. They may not have chosen it quite like all the other people, that is the difference in their circumstance, but they go into danger.”

Why did she follow this life? In the name of what? Kate asks the prostitute.

“In the end – survival,” she replies.

Kate, who was born just before the war which ended in 1945, says that her upbringing in Sunderland was very safe.

She expected to lead a traditional life with a job as a nurse, or teacher maybe.

She got a degree in Scandinavian Studies which qualified her to do not very much in itself, but the BBC was launching an experiment in local radio at the time and so she joined Radio Durham to do jobs like sorting out the record library.

It never occurred to her that she would slip into the journalistic stream.

Women, who were known as “girlies”, were not welcomed at the time and she knew nothing of the trade, but she moved from being a technician to a producer and was then asked to fill in the role of a news reporter on BBC Plymouth.

Gradually she worked her way up to being the BBC’s chief news correspondent.

She no longer does front-line reporting but produces Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent as well as writes.

Does she miss being in situations of danger?

“No, because I never wanted it,” she says. “You can’t miss something you didn’t actually desire. I was never attracted by danger. It’s not my thing.”

* Kate Adie will be speaking at the CBSO Centre on Friday, October 24, at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £8 (£6 and £5). For further details call 0121-303-2323 or visit the festival website www.birminghambookfestival.org

Into Danger is published by Hodder and Stoughton and costs £20.