Flying the coop

It's the Friday afternoon before the second-to-last Saturday Morning with Kim Hill. It's also two days after Hill has become a grandmother for a second time.

- RUSSELL BAILLIE

She is holding the new baby girl as she talks and laughs at broadcast decibel levels. Her granddaughter is unperturbed, but for an occasional newborn chirp. Even when Gran is getting animated about those infamous interviews with Monica Lewinsky or Jeffrey Archer, among others.

"You know, I'm talking in quite a loud voice and this baby is sound asleep on my chest. So cute."

This disturbance to Hill's childcare duties is all very last minute. The Listener had asked for an interview to mark her exit from the airwaves after 38 years.

After all, she has been on the magazine's cover regularly and a valedictory was surely called for. End of an era, last of her kind and all that. It would be fair to say that a fair proportion of Hill's audience are Listener readers, too, and vice versa. They possibly read a lot of the same books. They would possibly read a Hill memoir. More of which later.

Hill didn't like the idea of an exit interview. Instead, she offered to write a column, musing upon her departure, and possibly explaining why she was reluctant to be interviewed about it. Yes, please, we said.

But a few days before her deadline, and with the new arrival and three shows still to do, she realised writing something wasn't actually easier than talking to someone.

So, here we are a few hours later: Hill, her daughter's daughter and one slightly intimidated writer interviewing our greatest broadcast interviewer ... and underachieving columnist. "Yes, sorry, I over-promised and under-delivered," she says. "I feel terribly guilty."

So, given that she was going to be writing her own valedictory piece, how should the story start?

"Well, it is good to leave before they throw you out..."

KIM HILL'S LIFE IN THE FORM OF A KIM HILL INTERVIEW INTRODUCTION: