Did you always plan to become a journalist?

No, I always loved to write and as a schoolgirl dreamt of being a poet or novelist. But at Oxford I got taken to a cheese and wine party for the university newspaper and everyone there seemed very interesting so I signed up and ended up as editor. When I graduated I thought I would go and be a foreign correspondent for a while to have some adventures and earn some money. An unexpected invitation to a wedding in Karachi led me to fall in love with Pakistan and I ended up living in Peshawar where I met people whose real life stories were far more interesting than anything I could make up. I’ve been a foreign correspondent ever since!

How did you get started at The Sunday Times?

I joined the Sunday Times in 1994 when John Witherow became editor and made me South Africa Correspondent. My heroes were Jon Swain and Marie Colvin so I was very excited to work for the same paper as them. Under John then Martin Ivens, both former foreign editors, the Sunday Times has had a great tradition of foreign reporting and for me is the only newspaper to work as a foreign correspondent.

How has the experience of being foreign correspondent changed over your career?

In the 28 years I have been in the business, there have been two huge changes. One is technology which has made the job much easier logistically – when I started out I had to dictate to copy and often couldn’t file till I got back as there were no phones. We can now file instantly from the tops of mountains in the Hindu Kush or the middle of the desert in Iraq. Sadly, the other change is that being a foreign correspondent has become much more dangerous. We experienced that first hand at the Sunday Times when our colleague Marie Colvin was killed in Syria. I have lost a number of other friends.

How do you balance your personal safety with the desire to get the story?

That’s increasingly tricky for the reason I have just given. I’ve been ambushed by the Taliban, abducted by Pakistan’s ISI, narrowly escaped suicide bombing of a hotel and was on Benazir Bhutto’s bus when it was blown up. As a mum I don’t take crazy risks and think carefully about whether the road I am taking is actually going to give a good story. But of course when you are in a place you often get caught up in the story. And frankly the most dangerous situations I have ever been in have not looked dangerous at the outset.

How reliant are you on having a good support staff such as fixers/translators/drivers?

The best thing is to speak the language yourself –my greatest frustration at the moment is I don’t speak Arabic – but having a good fixer is key to understanding local dynamics, getting good stories and staying alive. Having a bad one is a nightmare – I once had a translator in Afghanistan who wouldn’t look at me because I am a woman and kept saying my questions were stupid.

Do you ever work from the News UK offices?

Very rarely – I mostly only pop in when my laptop needs fixing though I must admit the new building is much more enticing – I love the views!

Is a newspaper like The Sunday Times the best platform to highlight the activism for education and women’s rights in the Middle East?

Absolutely. As a woman I try very hard to get stories of women into the paper. Personally I think the real heroes of war are not the men fighting (mostly they are men) but usually the women who are struggling to protect, feed and shelter their children while all around them is chaos. I feel very strongly that we women should support each other and am very concerned about the situation of women in Afghanistan who we in the west encouraged to stand up and we now seem to be abandoning.

What story are you most proud of?

One of the reasons I became a foreign correspondent was I felt very strongly about injustice and wanted to change the world. Of course in practise that rarely happens. I was the first journalist to report that what the British troops were doing in Helmand was war not reconstruction and highlighted the lack of helicopters which led to a debate in Parliament and more being sent. But the stories I am most proud of are the happy stories such as the man who found a way to make water pumps from children’s roundabouts in African villages so women no longer had to walk hours to fetch water and children who had never had toys had somewhere to play. An amazing Sunday Times reader called Virginia Prifti had just lost her young son Lawrence when she read the story so set up a charity called Lawrence’s Wells which has installed these all over southern Africa.

Currently I have been trying to highlight the heartbreaking plight of migrants and feel ashamed that we in Europe are just pushing these people who have suffered so much from one place to another.