THE LAST HOURS OF MARIE COLVIN

In a riveting session, Channel 4 News editor Lindsey Hilsum discussed her book, In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin, a biography of her late friend and colleague, with the BBC’s Kirsty Lang.

It was February 2012, the time when the revolution in Syria was turning into a civil war. There was one particular place, Baba Amr in Homs, which was besieged and it was where the story was. Three of us at dinner in Beirut said it was too dangerous to go in. Marie said, “Well, anyway, it’s what we do.” And so she went in.

She and Paul Conroy, the photographer, had to crawl through a sewage tunnel for a kilometre to get there. She was 56 but very athletic. She did an extraordinary story about

“the widows’ basement” where the women and children hid, which was very significant as the Syrian government said there were only terrorists left.

Then she had to leave, as it looked like Syrian government forces were about to take over. But Marie felt like she was abandoning. It was the beginning of the utter ruthlessness of this war. And so she went back in and Paul went with her.

It’s now the third time they climb through the sewage tunnel. The situation is really dire. And then she calls me because she knew how bad the situation was and thought she should start doing television interviews. They had Skype on a satellite phone. I was furious with her. I said, “What the hell are you doing?”

And, these are the things you don’t forget in life, she said: “Lindsey, this is the worst we’ve ever seen.”

I said, “Yeah, I know, but what’s your exit strategy?”

She said, “That’s just it, we don’t have one, we’re working on it now.” And she was killed about eight hours later by a government mortar that was targeted on the media centre where she was staying. And that’s really why I wrote the book — I couldn’t get that bit out of my mind.