Woman's Hour and its presenter Jenni Murray came to Bradford yesterday, broadcasting live as part of the BBC's FutureWorld exhibition at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. But T&A writer Jim Greenhalf found that she is no stranger to the city.

"GOD, IS the Phantom of the Opera still on?" Jenni Murray laughed.

"That was on at the Alhambra when I got my honorary degree from the university a few years ago."

I suppose when you're as busy as she is - she lives in Cheshire with her partner and two children and writes for a national newspaper as well as presenting Radio 4's Woman's Hour - time and events blur in the memory.

In fact, when she received her Doctor of Letters degree from Bradford University in July 1994, the Lloyd-Webber musical at the Alhambra at the time was Cats.

But let's not quibble, for the allegedly fearsome feminist of the airwaves is a friendly and charming woman, Barnsley-born, with a fund of happy memories about trips to West Yorkshire.

She had just finished broadcasting yesterday's programme from the fifth floor of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and had popped outside for a relaxing cigarette - despite her mother's admonitions against the weed.

"We used to come here to go to the panto when I was a kid. And if we didn't shop in Sheffield or Leeds we'd come here. In the late 1950s, early 1960s, everybody used to come to Bradford for sheepskin coats. It was in an arcade. I used to love going there."

Upon being told that Swan Arcade had long since been demolished she said, "Oh, what a shame!"

As she posed for her photograph outside the Alhambra, a passing woman, who had heard the programme on her car radio, said: "Loved the programme, Jenni."

The compliment pleased her. "You know that you're communicating with the rest of the country. You don't always get a sense of that in a basement in Broadcasting House.

"I think it's great that we can come out. We're not unaware of what's going on in the rest of the country, but here I had people coming together in my studio."

Her Woman's Hour guests included three Asian women; Bridget Forsyth, about to play the Queen in Alan Bennett's Single Spies at West Yorkshire Playhouse; and PC Anne Griffin, of West Yorkshire Police.

PC Griffin was part of the small team of officers which went to Pakistan and discovered an all-women police station in Islamabad.

There was also a discussion with some women who used to work at Lister's Mill in Manningham, Bradford, in the days when it employed thousands of workers.

The final piece before the drama serial was a discussion about the origins of the Yorkshire Pudding and how best to cook them.

Jenni Murray confessed that her puds usually failed to rise. Her mum, who still lives in Barnsley, would be mortified.

BBC Radio has been broadcasting in Bradford all week, as part of its FutureWorld exhibition at the National Museum.

Michael Buerk, who once applied to the T&A for a job (and was turned down) presented The Moral Maze; this afternoon Alex Brodie presents a live edition of The Message; and on Sunday afternoon history will be made when Gardener's Question Time goes out live for the first time in 51 years, from the Museum.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.