Bettany Hughes is an award-winning broadcaster, President of JACT (The Joint Association of Classical Teachers), a founding patron of Classics For All and an advisor to the Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation. She has spent much of the past 20 years promoting the ideas, lessons and stories of the past to a wide general audience and her television films on the ancient world have now been seen by more than 100 million people worldwide. She was awarded the Naomi Sargent Prize for Broadcast Excellence for 2010 and a Special Award for Services to Hellenic Culture and Heritage.

Hughes will give a talk at Chiddingly Church at 8pm on Wednesday, September 21 as part of the Chiddingly Festival. To book, call 01825 872401 or visit www.chiddinglyfestival.co.uk.

Tell us a little about your appearance at Chiddingly…

I’m going to be discussing new evidence for Socrates and his life. This man – although he lived 25 centuries ago, in many ways gave us the modern world, with his assertion “the unexamined life is not worth living” – and we owe it to ourselves to understand a little more about him.

His own life story is full of passion and drama – and in discussing his philosophy I think that aspect is often neglected or censored.

Why is study of the past so important?

We are creatures of memory. We survive by remembering what we have done in the past and trying to improve upon it. We should never try to live in the past, but we are fools if we don’t admit we live with it.

What do you consider the highlights of your career so far?

I loved being the first woman to present a historical series on the BBC (Breaking The Seal, BBC Two, 2000) and delivering both the Helen and the Socrates books has been like producing two more children!

Everyone said Socrates would be a hard book to write, and it was – but it is now a New York Times bestseller which is pretty exciting.

Which film star/musician/ artist/writer/other figure do you admire?

Harrison Ford – watching those Indiana Jones movies when I was ten is one of the reasons I do what I’m doing today. I always knew that studying the past was a very cool thing to do – and he seemed to prove it!

Which TV programme couldn’t you live without?

University Challenge – my kids tease me mercilessly about watching it. But I love being reminded of how much I don’t know!

Do you remember the first record you bought? What was it, and where did you buy it?

Terrible admission, but I have never bought a record/tape or CD in my life.

I love music, I play it, my kids play instruments and sing, we still sit round the piano with my brother on a Sunday afternoon sometimes and belt out hymns together – but for some reason I’ve never felt pushed to purchase the stuff in a recorded form... we are always surrounded by music wherever we go these days, so I don’t feel cheated!

Tell us about any guilty pleasures lurking in your CD or film collections...

Sometimes late at night I dance in our drawing room to my daughter’s Now 69 CDs.

Do you have a favourite film?

My Family And Other Animals – the BBC version. Brilliant performance by Imelda Staunton and it seems to sum up family life perfectly.

My kids go wild on Corfu too and spend evenings searching out “nature” so it is a good nostalgic watch for me.

What about a favourite book?

There are so many it’s impossible to say, but I still remember the thrill of reading Jane Eyre for the first time – such passion!

Is there a song or individual piece of music you always come back to?

I love Jerusalem and I Vow To Thee My Country – patriotism is a fine thing if it is used for the good and not the bad.

What are you reading at the moment?

The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon – a fictionalised account of the early life of Aristotle.

Tell me about a live music/theatre/ cinema experience that sticks in your memory...

My dad is an actor and I went to see him in Gotcha when I was 11 at the Royal Court Theatre. He was performing in this raw show by Keira Knightley’s mum Sharman Macdonald and alongside Phil Davis – it was very dark, very dangerous, brooding, and electrically exciting to watch.

Is there a book/record/film/ play/person that made you want to do what you do now?

I read Homer when I was 15 and was entirely entranced by the Bronze Age and Iron Age world conjured up on the pages. And back when I was five I went to the British Museum exhibition of Tutankhamun plus I watched a BBC show about him. Suddenly those fairy stories I’d heard about boy kings dripping in gold and buried in tombs became real in front of my very eyes.

I think that was a very inspirational moment