Matthew Parris reflects on 20 years of Great Lives and his favourite guests

A quarter of a century ago – at 11pm one Friday night in 2001 – a new programme slipped quietly into Radio 4’s schedule. Great Lives was the brainchild of a young producer, Miles Warde. Joan Bakewell was presenting, Tim Waterstone (founder of the bookshop chain) was the invited guest, and his choice of life was Clement Attlee.

Earlier this month, I stepped back after presenting the programme for more than 20 years. I’m 77. Best to quit before people want you to go. I may have played into their hands, though. At the time of writing, Great Lives has been “decommissioned” for its winter run and there’s great uncertainty when – or if – it will return, as the BBC considers how to make £500m in savings.

Miles, too, is leaving, older, greyer but still full of beans – and, frankly, I’ve completely depended on his genius. His spirit has hovered over all who have worked on Great Lives. My dreams will forever be invaded by his barking into my earpiece: “Move on! I’m the producer, not you!”

The format has never changed from the day it was just a gleam in Miles’s eye. It’s beautifully simple. We invite a guest who is of some account in national life. They needn’t be celebs, just notable people, though we’ve had guests like Boris Johnson, Miriam Margolyes, Ruby Wax, Rob Rinder and David Miliband.

We ask them to nominate someone, now dead, whom they admire, who means much to them personally or whose life they think important; and to make their case.

As presenter I don’t pretend to deep knowledge of my guest’s choice. Being extraordinarily ignorant on a wide range of subjects, I’m genuinely finding out. To help me, I invite a second guest: someone who really knows their stuff. And then the three of us spend half an hour talking about the chosen individual’s life, their work and their personality.

You won’t believe how easy a job this is. I may spend an hour or two reading up about the life, and then, with my producer, we put together a skeleton scriptoid for the discussion, with plenty of questions to ask, as I help guide the conversation. And I do mean conversation. We chat, we laugh – even, sometimes, wipe away a tear.

My most memorable subjects? From the 600-odd lives we’ve covered, Ignaz Semmelweis stands out. The mid-19th- century Hungarian doctor was driven from his post in Vienna General Hospital after he told doctors they were killing the millions of women dying in childbirth from a fever sweeping the world – which was being communicated, he had established through “human challenge” trials, on doctors’ unwashed hands. Ignored, Semmelweis died in a mental asylum. Years later his theory was proved absolutely right.

Our programme so often, I feel, got most from overlooked lives that deserve to be remembered, rather than people already on statues. The poet Lemn Sissay chose a child-heir to the throne of Abyssinia who was shipped to England, placed in Queen Victoria’s care, and died young. “A remarkable life, but ‘great’ – really?” I challenged Lemn. “A great life that never was,” he replied. I loved that.

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Sticky moments? The late Christopher Hitchens, walking out of the studio mid-recording, calling me a “bleeding Tory”. I’d criticised his hero, Leon Trotsky. I suspect the walk-out was performative, as he then walked back in. At least he showed enthusiasm. More challenging was Lord Snowdon, whose excellent choice, Sir Alec Issigonis (designer of the original Mini), seemed, on a hot afternoon, to bore him. We were rescued by a superb expert witness.

I sweated, too, under interrogation on Radio 4’s Feedback, to defend our going ahead with the historian Margaret MacMillan’s choice of Benito Mussolini. But our episode made a gripping half-hour, and MacMillan, aiming to correct any idea that Mussolini was simply a buffoon, argued for his importance, not his virtue.

Most fun? Tintin as a great life (though his rather boring creator, Hergé, was nominally my guest’s choice). I argued that Tintin was obviously gay: he lived with a sailor; owned a lapdog; opera divas were his only lady friends; and he was drawn to a smooth-skinned Tibetan youth in a cave. The clues are all there. Cue shocked headlines in continental newspapers.

Regrets? Not finding anyone to nominate Lucifer, or Jesus. I do so hope Great Lives lives on, and finally gives both their due.

Hundreds of episodes of Great Lives are available to listen to on BBC Sounds

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