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Of course, there are many days, like today, when I don’t have anybody’s name scribbled down in my diary to interview. I figured it might be interesting if I took the opportunity of these lulls to look back at interesting earlier encounters.

In November 2004 I picked up the phone and called Dr Mo Mowlam, ahead of an “audience with” style show she was to give at York Theatre Royal later that month.

She was one of a very rare breed during her career in Parliament – a genuinely popular politician. Her frankness and gentle charm attracted respect from people of all political persuasions, while her tactful diplomacy will go down in history as one of the binding factors in Ireland’s long walk to peace.

Her personal struggle, recovering from a brain tumour while continuing to address her ministerial responsibilities, became a very public affair, as she battled fatigue, hair loss and the weight-gaining effects of steroid-based treatments.

She died in August 2005, the summer after my interview.

For a woman who had spent months knocking Ireland’s toughest politicians into shape, her voice took me by surprise as she was passed on to the line.

She spoke with a tiny, fragile voice, that sounded almost child-like in its gentle shrillness. As she spoke her frailty also became apparent. She was breathless throughout the interview, panting quietly between answers, as if she was talking after just running up a couple of flights of stairs.

But she remained steadfast in her tireless approach to life.

“Although I’ve retired from parliamentary politics, I certainly haven’t retired from politics,” she told me. “I do a lot of campaigning work for charities and I write a lot of political pieces for newspapers. I don’t think I could ever retire from being politically motivated.”

She had even taken to writing an agony aunt column for a lad’s mag called Zoo.

“I always get interesting questions to answer for that,” she chuckled. “Often it’s sexual stuff, but I always give it plenty of thought before putting pen to paper.”

But Mo will forever be remembered for the more serious job of Northern Ireland Secretary, which she was given after the 1997 General Election, and which saw her negotiating skills put to good use in achieving what would eventually become the Good Friday Agreement.

“My time in Ireland was very stressful,” she admitted. “My brain tumour had come the year before I went out there, but I’d had the all-clear before the end of 1997.

“And in Ireland I had to devote a lot of time and energy to the job. I lived in Hillsborough Castle itself for a couple of years, so the work was pretty much constant.

“My role was simple in a way – I was trying to bring the two sides together all the time and I was determined to put everything I had into it.”

Mo was clearly disillusioned with the Government’s conduct over Iraq by this time.

Although a Basil Fawlty-esque phone call from her PR man a few minutes before the interview suggested an unwillingness to discuss Iraq – roughly along the lines of “Don’t mention the war” (I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it … etc.), Mo didn’t take a lot of coaxing once she was on the line.

“After 9/11, I think we needed to do something,” she said. “But I was very disappointed when they went to war in Iraq, without UN backing. I believe strongly you don’t bomb or shoot terrorists into submission. If you do that you just act as a recruitment agency for the terrorists.

“If I learned anything in Ireland, it is that the only way to tackle terrorism is through dialogue. You have to talk to all the parties involved – including the terrorists.

“But when I suggested we should be talking to Al Qaida last year, I was laughed down,” she added with a resigned sigh.