BBC Radio 3

Ian Skelly loves music. A long time ago he discovered that it contains the wisdom of the world, so he listens devoutly.

He grew up on the Lancashire coast where the wind blows so hard trees rarely grow very high, they all lean drastically inland and flowers are just a rumour, so listening to Radio 3 became an escape, certainly in the winter!

He presented his first radio programme when he was in his teens and spent his student years either as a permanent fixture in the student seats at the CBSO under Simon Rattle or working as a reporter for the BBC in Birmingham and then in Leicester and Nottingham.

Then came seven glorious years presenting daily shows for the BBC in Shropshire and Derbyshire where he began to plant tall trees. A spell as an award-winning travel writer for the Observer took him all over the world and too far out into the Atlantic, then he turned his hand to television production. But having never owned a television he found the process permanently baffling and ridiculous so he set his sights on Radio 3 and the music he loves.

In the decade he has been with the station he has presented programmes from the break of day to the end of it and introduced every kind of music under the sun. He still hears something new every day.

He is also a published writer on the arts, sacred geometry and other aspects of what is known as the “perennial philosophy” and is much in demand around the world training BBC presenters and correspondents. He has now planted many trees. They all stand tall against the wind and his garden is full of flowers.