Like the title of our venerable newspaper, veteran TV and radio broadcaster Sarah Kennedy is an observer and no doubt she’ll have plenty of points to share when she presents An Audience With... at The Radlett Centre next week.

“I’ve always been fascinated by accents and languages,” says Sarah. “My whole show can be just about having sat on a railway station for half an hour. I store up all the quirky things people say. I observe. It’s like the catchphrase we used on Game For A Laugh ‘Watching us watching you, watching us watching you’.”

A former drama teacher at Queenswood School, Sarah worked alongside Baroness Runcie the well-known classical pianist, wife of the then Bishop of St Albans, the late Robert Runcie, who went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

Sarah began her broadcasting career in Singapore before joining Radio 2 in 1976, where she presented Family Favourites. As well as Game For a Laugh, her television credits include Holiday and The Animals Roadshow.

She made a name for herself with her early morning Radio 2 show Dawn Patrol, which began in January 1993, but after 34 years at the beeb, Sarah has decided to leave and catch up on a bit of sleep.

To introduce her subject matter for the Radlett show, Sarah launches into a polished monologue obviously honed by years of practice on air.

“It’ll be a bumbling route through how I got to where I am today. It’ll be quite intimate.

“My father was a stockbroker and my mother was a nurse, and I didn’t inherit either of their skills. My brother always knew he wanted to be an accountant, my sisters wanted to be a bookbinder and a doctor. It was very unpleasant. I was Mrs don’t know.

“It wasn’t the best springboard for getting into broadcasting. I remember my mother, the nurse, saying, ‘I do wish I could help dear, but I can only think of Great Ormond Street’.”

After a shaky start playing records at the wrong speed, while learning the ropes in Singapore on an MOD sponsored traineeship aged 21, Sarah went on to tackle such radio gems such as the shipping forecast.

“You’d have a five minute read to hit the pitch. You’ve got your wit and nothing else.”

In 1995, Kennedy received a Sony Gold Radio Award. Then in 2005, she was awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting. She announced her decision to step down at the start of this month. Following Chris Moyles rant about pay on his Radio One breakfast show this Wednesday, I ask Sarah if she feels the industry had changed for the worst?

“The only thing I can say is from the director general to the cleaner, everyone has felt a change since the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand incident. There’s much more a feeling of people being really careful. It’s become an era of everyone watching their backs.”

An Audience With Sarah Kennedy is at The Radlett Centre, Aldenham Avenue, Radlett on Friday, October 1 at 7.30pm. Details: 01923 859291