Corrie Corfield was born in Oxford and grew up in the rural idyll of Shakespeare's county. She went to school in Stratford-upon-Avon and was strongly influenced by the dramatic vibes emanating from the town's theatre. There were no surprises, therefore, when she headed to Goldsmiths College in London to read Drama and English.

Corrie joined the BBC in 1983 as a trainee studio manager and spent five years with the BBC World Service, working on broadcasts in 37 different languages and occasionally intoning "This is London. There now follows a programme in Bengali".

In 1987 BBC 648 was set up - a trilingual station in English, German and French and Corrie was one of the original team of announcers/studio managers. From there she spent six months on secondment as a newsreader and announcer for the World Service itself, and in 1988 joined Radio 4.

Corrie went to Johannesburg in South Africa in 1991, where she spent the next four years working at local radio station 702. She also produced programmes for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Back in London in 1995, she returned to Radio 4 and has been there ever since.

Her small but perfectly proportioned garden is a great source of joy, as are the six weeks she spends in the winter tackling the ski slopes of Austria and frequent summer trips to an Ionian idyll.

Corrie says "I work with a brilliant bunch of people and I'm paid to be part of the best radio station in the world. How lucky is that!"