My greatest mistake : Emma Jones columnist for 'The Sun'

The biggest mistake I made was when I worked on the Evening Leader in North Wales. I specialised in entertainment. Once I interviewed Nigel Kennedy, and he took a shine to me. He asked me if I'd like to travel around the world with him as his PA. I was 21 and thought this was my ticket out of Mold. We set up an interview in his home town. I travelled there, and when he rolled up to the station to pick me up (an hour late), all his friends were there, too. We spent the afternoon at Aston Villa watching the football, and then partied all night. It was brilliant. I was promised that I'd go on tour with him, and that he'd rent a flat for me.

I handed in my notice at the paper, but things weren't quite what they seemed. He decided that I wouldn't go to America with him, and he wasn't keen on the idea of getting me a flat – I should live in his house instead. I was wondering what on earth I had done, but it was too late. I moved in while he was in America, and had nothing to do except arrange his CDs in alphabetical order – he had 1,000. It wasn't inspirational. In the six months that I worked for him, I got one trip – to Berlin. He abandoned me in the middle of the city after a concert, and I had to lug his huge humidifier system through Berlin's red-light district back to the hotel. It was unbelievable. I'd been used to hard-core bosses in newspapers, but they had nothing on Nigel. He told me I must keep my phone on, even if I went to the toilet. He said you had to do business the "Kennedy way". When I finally got the push I was over the moon.

On reflection, it worked out really well, because I missed journalism so much that I decided it was what I wanted to do. So Nigel actually did me a favour.