Janet Street-Porter might seem like an irreverent blabbermouth on TV – but Chris Price found her an oddly charming person

Trying to catch five minutes on the phone with Janet Street-Porter leaves a journalist with two problems: keeping calm over the imminent grilling and a long wait.

A woman with a fearsome reputation – she reportedly bullied colleagues in two years as editor of the Independent on Sunday and has a dislike of working with women – I sat quaking in my boots, waiting for her to call like a lovestruck teenager.

The list of prerequisites for the interview begins to paint a picture, although as time passes it turns out to be the wrong one. Ahead of Janet’s talk on rambling at Margate’s Turner Contemporary, tying in with its Hamish Fulton: Walk exhibition, she would only speak providing we do not talk about the TV show Loose Women, do not reveal the address of her Whitstable home and only ask questions about walking. She finally calls for the interview an hour and three quarters late, as if to build the tension.

“The time I was meant to phone you I was out walking,” she said from her second home up in the Yorkshire Dales.

“You won’t print my address will you? I get a lot of trouble when people stand outside my house. I would like anonymity in Whitstable.”

Testing the water on how tight the walking chat restrictions are, the conversation moves to one of her recent columns for the Daily Mail, mentioning Margate.

Bemoaning the state of Britain’s high streets and town centres, she wrote: “In places like Margate, where over a third of shops are empty, the old town has small, quirky individual retailers. The main street is horrible.

“The best thing to revitalise Margate’s centre would be affordable housing, community centres, facilities for residents, and sheltered housing for the elderly where they can people-watch. The traditional town centre has had its day.”

When asked to elaborate, her initial bravado turns to flippancy.

“The High Street is still horrible,” she said. “I once said that Herne Bay was shoddy and there was uproar about it. People are so sensitive. I think the art gallery (Turner Contemporary) in Margate is fantastic, I like the Indian restaurant the Ambrette and I liked the little cafe on the Harbour Arm until they closed it for six months to refit it. It will be open in the summer. Anyway I like to walk to Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate.”

She tries to stick to the script, explaining she likes to walk along the coast, particularly Romney Marsh, Faversham, Whitstable and Margate. A former president of the Ramblers’ Association, she walked across Britain from Dungeness to Conway in Wales for the BBC series Coast to Coast in 1998. “I walk anywhere really. It is just relaxing. I like walking by myself.”

The list of places in Kent the 65-year-old likes to wander continues – “Stodmarsh, spelt S.T.O.D.M.A.R.S.H” – and she goes on to add how pleased she was to be asked to talk about walking in the presence of Hamish Fulton’s exhibition.

“I thought his exhibition was good. He had an exhibition at the Tate I went to as well. I think it is like performance art. He makes a record and takes photographs. I have no problem with it (for being unusual) but then I collect art and I like art as I trained as an architect and have always had an interest in art.”

Having kept a diary since the age of 10, Janet always knew she wanted to be a writer. She has kept diaries of all her walks and her travels. “When I was little I had diaries and I wrote reviews of all the books I read,” she said, almost apologetically for giving an insight into the real her.

It turns out Janet, who has been married four times, is much more friendly than she is in the two columns she writes every week for the Daily Mail and as editor-at-large for the Independent on Sunday. Yet she tries to turn serious.

“Writing a column takes a long time to get good at because you have to express your opinion in a set number of words and work week-in, week-out to a deadline. Opinion is what sells newspapers. You can get facts on the internet but people like an opinion.”

Then time is up, just as she starts to reveal something about herself and her insuppressible views. Yet she leaves with a classic parting comment which shows just how little she cares about what people think about her.

“At least you can say the old cow never called me because she was out having a walk,” she said, with her first proper laugh. “Oh no don’t write that or else I’ll be upset.”

Sorry.

JS-P's career

1969 After a brief stint at girls’ magazine Petticoat, she joins the Daily Mail, becoming deputy fashion editor

1971 Becomes fashion editor of the Evening Standard

1973 LBC radio station begins broadcasting and Janet co-presents the mid-morning show

1975 Janet makes her move into television at LWT, first as a reporter

1987 BBC2 boss Alan Yentob appoints her head of youth and entertainment features. She is responsible for the twice-weekly DEF II and commissions the shows Rapido, Red Dwarf and Rough Guide

1994 Janet leaves the BBC for Mirror Group Newspapers to become joint-managing director with Kelvin MacKenzie of the ill-fated L!VE TV channel. She leaves after four months. She also becomes president of the Ramblers Association for the next two years.

1999 Becomes editor of the Independent on Sunday but leaves in 2001, having increased circulation by 11.6%

2003 Janet writes and presents a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival

2004 Appears in the fourth series of I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

2006 Becomes field correspondent on Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word

2011 Janet joins ITV’s Loose Women

Janet Street-Porter shares her passion for walking at a talk at Margate’s Turner Contemporary on Thursday, April 26. There’s a complimentary glass of wine before the talk begins. Tickets £10, concessions £8. Call 01843 233000.