HOW WE MET

JOHN HUMPHRYS: I can remember exactly how I met John Simpson. It was in 1977, over Sunday lunch in a restaurant in Johannesburg that prided itself on its barbecued ribs. I had only been in South Africa for a few days, having gone there to set up the BBC's television bureau, and John had been the BBC's radio man in southern Africa for about 18 months. Our colleagues arranged the lunch so we could meet.

As John walked into the restaurant with his wife and two young daughters in tow, I thought what a conventional chap he was. He struck me, as a Welsh-man, as quintessentially English. He didn't drink, didn't smoke and I remember thinking he was a bit staid. I couldn't have been more wrong.

We struck up a rapport immediately. He is immensely likeable and a thoroughly nice bloke. I discovered quickly that he is a funny man with a wonderful sense of humour that might be described as anarchic, which fitted mine like a glove.

I discovered very early on that John has a rebellious streak. It was evident in his relations with his bosses: both he and I have always had what could be described as "interesting" relationships with our respective superiors.

John is an iconoclast. You couldn't put a political label on him. On some things he is radical, although he writes for the Spectator. He and I have had disagreements from time to time, but we have never had a real falling out.

We both loathed apartheid, which of course was in operation when we were in South Africa, and did our best to buck the system. For instance, I inherited John's maid, Caroline, when he moved back to London, and we both allowed her husband to live with her, which was illegal and quite a serious offence in those days. We also encouraged her to have her children with her during the holidays, which was also illegal.

In Africa, we often worked together covering the same stories. On one occasion, I recall John ripped his trousers as he climbed over a barbed wire fence at a football field, in front of 70,000 Africans and the Queen. The crowd roared as he stood there, exposing his underpants. John was acutely embarrassed but he carried it off with his customary aplomb.

John and I were both in our early thirties when we met. It's been a running joke between us over the years that we both claim to have been the BBC's youngest foreign correspondent. I was 28 when I went to the United States and John was 26 when he went to Dublin, but I don't consider that to be a foreign posting.

What began as a professional relationship became a personal one pretty quickly, despite us coming from very different backgrounds. I came into broadcasting via newspapers and John came straight from university, and our techniques are very different. John is a first-class journalist. He has a wonderful mind. A lot of people who don't know him well see John as a forbidding figure around Television Centre these days. It always puzzles me that the newer journalists are slightly in awe of him - but I think he enjoys his reputation as a rather distant figure.

We get on enormously well, so well that when I stayed on in Africa after he left, we kept in regular contact by mail. He is an immensely kind man, al-though he may not like people to think so. Years after we were both back in Britain, there was a fire at my cottage in Wales, in which I lost a lot of books. When John learnt about it he had a whip-round in the office and gave me a book token to replace the books I'd lost. I was touched by that.

In 1981, we were both presenting the Nine O'Clock News, which chan-ged format: instead of being fronted by people like Richard Baker and Kenneth Kendall, it was decided to bring in journalists as presenters. I was recruited and I suggested to the new editor that John should be the other presenter with me. John was given the job, which he then lost - because some critics were very harsh about the new look and a sacrificial lamb was needed. I was very angry about it, but I wasn't told until it was a fait accompli. John moved on to be diplomatic editor and now, as foreign affairs editor, he has one of the best jobs in the BBC.

John changed after his marriage broke up. His lifestyle changed - he likes the odd glass of wine now, for instance - but his personality and his irreverence have stayed the same.

Since I joined the Today programme we meet less often - making arrangements is such a drama because he is away for eight or nine months of the year and I have a ludicrous regime which requires getting up at 4am. We do get together, but now when we meet it's more often in the office or when we're both doing the news. He is the bravest reporter I have ever worked with, brave to the point of foolhardiness. I don't think he has a self- preservation instinct.

JOHN SIMPSON: Initially, there was a potential for really bad blood bet-ween John and I. I'd taken the job of BBC radio correspondent in South Africa, having been told there was no question of a television bureau being set up there. Then, a few months later, out came John Humphrys - as television correspondent. My nose was very seriously put out of joint. I was very upset and very angry.

I was predisposed not to like John, because he had the job I wanted, and also because he had a reputation for being difficult. However, I soon found out that we had precisely the same sense of humour, and within a couple of minutes of meeting, we were laughing at the same kind of things. Our time together in Africa was very pleasant; we've remained friends ever since.

More than anything else, we have been close allies. We have suffered in the same way from the same kind of people - particularly when we were reading the Nine O'Clock News together in 1981. It was such an unpleasant time - there was so much hostility and criticism, inside and outside the BBC, of the programme, and of us as individuals. It united us.

John is, I think, deeply sensitive, and I am quite prickly, so it is surprising that we have never had a real row. In the early days we both trod carefully, feeling that we ought to try to get on. There was a hell of a lot going on in southern Africa when we were there in 1977, including three full-scale wars. We covered the same assignments about 60 per cent of the time.

John is a different operator from me. He is a tougher interviewer. If he feels something, he says it, whereas I kind of work round it. I think he has toughened up more since he joined the Today programme. He's had to. I don't think he could deal with all those politicians day by day otherwise.

John, like me, is very competitive. He is an instinctive broadcaster. He is so quick-minded you can hear the cogs moving, particularly on his Today programme interviews. You can hear him setting out on a particular tack, and if the person he is interviewing says something that shows he is heading in a slightly different direction, John is on that in a moment. He's like a terrier. It is a skill I admire greatly.

I think that John, like me, takes offence rather easily. Another shared characteristic is that we can get over things quickly; but we don't forget. He doesn't suffer fools, doesn't like slow-minded people. He is quick and impatient and sharp - and sharp- minded can be sharp-tongued.

He is a loner, not one of the boys. I pretend to be gregarious, but I'm also a loner; that was another thing that brought us together. When both our marriages broke up we talked about it, but we didn't go into details; we don't have that kind of relationship.

We once shared a dog. In Africa, I had a Rhodesian Ridgeback called Titus, which I thought was the most stunning animal on earth. When I was returning to London to a small flat, I felt I couldn't bring Titus back with me and Humphrys took him over and I think loved him as much as I did.

Ours is a friendship against the odds, really. When I wanted to cover the Lancaster House Zimbabwe independence talks, the story was taken off me and given to John. Rather than let a glowering enmity develop between us, I remember we went off to Hampstead Heath and talked things through. When we were both presenters on the Nine O'Clock News and I was pushed out, I didn't feel resentment towards John; it was nothing to do with him. But these experiences made us both determined never again to trust our lives to bureaucrats.

I learnt a lot about working for television from John. He was already an experienced correspondent when we met; just going around with him was an education. He never stops working. As I get older and shorter-tempered, I think my style has become more like his. I ask blunter questions these days. I have been surprised by Humphrys's ability to get deeper and deeper into subjects, and to do the research necessary. He is well-briefed, and that means a lot of heavy duty reading.

He is a tremendous survivor. He is a driven man. He is also a very puritanical character. I think he likes to earn money to give himself security, but I don't think he is particularly interested in the things that money buys.

He is very good in dangerous situations. I remember in Rhodesia, driving with him deeper and deeper into the tribal trustlands, knowing that there were guerrilla groups behind us and mines in the road. John stayed completely calm and kept up a jokey, relaxed sort of conversation with me which eased the tension for the rest of the crew.

These days, his life is just as exciting. There is nothing more dangerous than sitting in a studio with Tony Blair or John Major and firing off questions live: within 10 seconds you could have blown your career out of the water. !