Professor Sir Denis Brogan

How long have you been broadcasting?

Oh, well, I began broadcasting and after the news, I suppose, about 1930 or 31, when it was beginning to be a regular nine o'clock commentary … I suppose I've been at this business now for thirty years anyway.

This phenomenal memory of yours, have you ever consciously trained it, or was it a gift?

No, I think it's uh that kind of memory as a gift, or uh whatever you like to call it, it's a fact. Of course you can improve … it begins to give way with age and you can improve it by reading precisely and memorizing deliberately instead of accidentally … I no longer have the automatic. It's a visual image. I can see the page. I know where the line occurs on the page. I can see the illustration … but it's not automatic any longer.

You also have the unusual gift of being able to work on two mental levels at once. In the London Round Britain Quiz studio, Lionel Hale says you've been observed writing a letter while answering a question and not faltering on either task. How does that work?

Well, the usual letters are not terribly important letters. Ones I could work off and the question perhaps was easy and I wasn't under strain either way.