When Jan Leeming received an invitation to the annual Battle of Britain Memorial Day in July 2007 she had no idea of the journey it would set her upon.  After sponsoring a name on the Memorial she set about finding out more about the stranger she had been allocated.

"After a professional lifetime of interviewing and researching I was eager to find out more....  up came Rene's name on a Google search and the fact that he had written diaries during the war, which were published post-war... I am a romantic, pure and simple, and decided I would source a copy of the original diaries in French.  Finding a copy in an antiquarian bibliotheque in Belgium, I sent off the very reasonable sum of 10 Euros plus postage and soon received a copy with, would you believe, a little calling card stuck inside the cover to a Monsieur and Madame Griser, thanking them and sending her best wishes from 'Madame O. Mouchotte'.  What were the chances of that happening and that book ending up in my possesion?  I did not realise then that I was 'on a mission' and the more delving I did, the more I discovered, and the more deeply moved I became."

In a special episode of her successful podcast Jan Leeming charts her journey to bring the story of Rene Mouchotte to television and their republication.

Jan becomes a firm favourite of TV viewers with viewing figures for the Sunday evening News being watched by over 14 million people.  Following the breakdown of her marriage she begins to see Eric Steenson and tells of some of the events she was invited to:

"I remember most when Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman put in an appearance.  They arrived by helicopter and instead of being driven from the field... someone had organised a 'bridge' across the small stream so they could walk directly into the grounds.  Sarah trotted across very daintily but Andrew slipped and fell with both legs straddling the plank.  Ouch!  Remembering his rudeness to me I'm ashamed to say I smiled broadly.  But then so did a lot of other people!  Sarah was lovely."

A change of agents ahead of a BBC Newsroom reshuffle does nothing to help her position and despite still topping polls she is given a shorter contract and told "the BBC would prefer it if I made no waves and that if I didn't 'there would be other work' for me."

She recounts her memories of colleagues and friends, (as well as journalists) Richard Baker, Paul Daniels, Anne Robinson, Esther Rantzen, Sue Lawley, Selina Scott, Robert Lindsay, Emma Thompson, Russell Harty among them.

An unexpected phone call from BBC Radio 2 takes Jan Leeming to London.  "I passed the audition with flying colours and was offered a one-year contract in London.  I didn't mind working on radio rather than television at all and was absolutely delighted to have a job."  She recounts the rise of the 'personality' DJ in the late seventies and how Noel Edmonds delighted in trying to make her 'corpse' on air.

With Radio 2 extending its schedule to 24hrs comes the opportunity to front three shows a week - just at 2am in the morning!  Considering her options, Jan returns to Australia and her great friend Michael Laurence, and meets Howard Keel.

"Our regular listeners were insomniacs, shift workers, old people and many who were simply lonely in the wee small hours of the night and listened to the radio for comfort.  I feel radio is a much more intimate medium than television."