In her latest book Into Danger: Risking Your Life for Work, Sunderland’s front-liner, former war correspondent Kate Adie admits that when you’re in the thick of it, every situation is ‘bloody terrifying’. But fear is a very personal perception, as the steeplejack, the diver and the bodyguard all testify.

“There are different kinds of fear. I could describe half a dozen different kinds. The main thing is to acknowledge that you get frightened. Denying it is when you can get into a lot of trouble.”

KATE Adie should know. Even though she left the battlefield 20 years ago, the enduring image is of her standing in a war zone, unflinching in a flak jacket with a microphone in hand. But as she points out, the rules of engagement for her as a journalist were somewhat different to that of the squaddies around her. “The assumption seems to be that journalists and soldiers share the same dangers and therefore share the same decisions about risk. But we have different obligations. The military system ... lays down that your duty is to head towards the objective. The hack has a completely different objective, which lies in the opposite direction: to get the story back, way behind the lines. If you decided to do and were to die, you would have failed in your objective. No story.”

However phlegmatic about personal risk she may appear, there are plenty of real-life examples of journalists who have done and died: more than 100 in Iraq alone.

“After I’d written my autobiography, a lot of people said, ‘Oh, you must have a dangerous job’,” says Kate.

“I would say, ‘Well, only if you make mistakes and the unexpected happens’. I never woke up in the morning and thought: What’s the danger going to be this morning? I wonder what’s lurking around the corner. It just wasn’t part of how the job was.”

Consequently, there is no chapter in her fourth book headed The Chief News Correspondent, which could easily have drawn upon her dodgy expeditions to Tripoli after the American bombing in 1986, Kuwait after the Iraqis were turfed out in 1990, Rwanda where she reported on the genocide, or Tiananmen Square after the student massacre. Her last assignment was in the Gulf War. Instead, there are chapters devoted to The Snake Venom Collector, The Diver, The Armed Robber, The Prostitute and The Bomb Disposal Officer, all of whom reveal differing perceptions of danger.

She was never a daredevil, Kate insists, looking back on her childhood in Sunderland. The war had recently ended, the grown-ups didn’t want to talk about it, and “danger belonged to the past”.

In the book she notes that her degree subject at Newcastle University, Scandinavian studies, “qualified me for a massively important national role – should the Vikings ever invade us again”.

But her eventual choice of profession wasn’t exactly flower arranging, was it?

“There have been moments, yes there have,” she allows.

Tiananmen Square was one of them. She recalls that it was such a huge story that normal safety-first rules were compromised.

“A lot of TV people assumed the action would be in the square itself so they stayed in their hotels, which were nearby. But actually a lot of shooting took place in the streets around the square, which is where we were.”

She certainly doesn’t count herself as a hero. But it’s a title she would readily ascribe to men like diver Gie Couwenbergh who saved dozens of lives in the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, and the “wonderful” bomb disposal pioneer Stuart Archer, now in his 90s.

Both are the subjects of crisply written and often hair-raising chapters in the book.

Kate reported on the Herald of Free Enterprise tragedy and writes with particular admiration for Gie.

A lot of the people who live with danger are regular guys, like him, she says.

But you could hardly say that about the armed robber (Bobby Cummines, now going straight) or the prostitute (Amanda, a 33-year-old mum).

“You could go and write a book about heroes but I didn’t want to do that. Prostitution is one of the most dangerous ways of earning a living and all the arguments about it are very complicated. It’s not just a moral thing but it is a very risky business and it is getting worse.”

Any list invites controversy but Kate says: “It’s my list and I don’t make any apologies for it.”

Kate, who now presents from the safety of a BBC desk job with From Our Own Correspondent on Radio 4, says she searched for common personality traits in those who choose to live dangerously.

In the end she came up with just one: “a common thread of purposeful determination”.

Into Danger: Risking Your Life For Work is published by Hodder & Stoughton, £20.

The professions insurers like to avoid

ACCORDING to UK insurers, for whom risk equals high probability of a pay-out, steeplejacks, divers and security officers are among the top professions to avoid. Here’s why...

Steeplejack/scaffolder

Apart from the obvious threat of a fall, steeplejacks run a grave risk of being struck by lightning.

Demolition/bomb disposal/mine clearance expert

If you didn’t have Fred Dibnah down as a hero think again. Demolition and explosives work is not for the faint-hearted.

Pilot

Jetting out of Tees Valley and Newcastle airports might appear glamorous and – in terms of the number of accidents – relatively safe, but insurers classify commercial pilots, especially those flying light aircraft, as an extremely high risk.

Diver

Apart from the obvious threat of drowning, divers are also prone to mental problems caused by working underwater for long periods of time and to possible surges or deficiencies in oxygen supply.

Oil or gas rigger

North Sea oil rig workers are judged to be at a high risk of work-related injury – but their premiums are much lower than colleagues working in the Persian Gulf or off the coast of Nigeria, partly because these offshore rigs are seen as prime terrorist targets.

Deep-sea fisherman/trawlerman

For those in peril on the sea, insurers have a heavy weighting. The sheer unpredictability of the weather and currents means it’s classified as
one of the highest-risk occupations.

Soldier/security guard

Private security guard insurance is calculated according to the country in which you’re operating – those in a war zone or in a country with a current Foreign Office travel warning are heavily penalised.