Kati Whitaker

George Bernard Shaw telegrammed Winston Churchill just prior to the opening of Major Barbara: "Have reserved two tickets for first night. Come and bring a friend if you have one."

Churchill wired back, "Impossible to come to first night. Will come to second night, if you have one."

On graduating in politics and philosophy from Oxford she trained as a lawyer while simultaneously preparing for her alternative career in broadcasting by making radio features on such subjects as life on an oil rig and being a belly dancer. A World Service producer contract was all it took to abandon law , before rapidly moving on to present the Radio 4 disabilities programme Does He take Sugar for nearly ten years, report for BBC Breakfast and Radio 4's Sunday programme and others.

Kati has covered many overseas assignments as a reporter and producer including Aids in Uganda; multicultural education in Kosovo; disability in Armenia; landmines in Angola; youth gangs in Guatemala; the return of child solders in Northern Uganda and just recently the influx of Iraqi refugees to Jordan.

She has won several awards for her programme making and journalism including the Medical Journalist association award for a programme about gene therapy ; One World Award and a Sony nomination for a programme about Rwandan Widows; the Sandford St martins Award for a Radio 4 programme on spirituality and mental health and the 2006 Educational Journalist of the year award.Most recently she has been working on a documentaries about a refugee turned aid worker and , for Radio 4, the search for sperm donated siblings.

Kati is married with two beautiful daughters (why can't I be 16 again!) and a bi polar disordered dog called Bracken.