READING the classified football results of Swindon Town’s relegation just last month might be an unorthodox entry to make on to the stage at the Swindon Festival of Literature. But veteran broadcaster and voice of the shipping forecast Charlotte Green saved the day by following this up with their 1969 victory over Arsenal in the Football League Cup Final to earn herself a rapturous welcome from the audience.

Her distinctive delivery of the headlines landed her the title of ‘most attractive female voice in radio’ according to a Radio Times poll, and she has earned herself a loyal following of fans up and down the country. Yesterday she lifted the lid on a lifetime spent behind the mic at the BBC – revealing that behind her formal tones is a bit of a giggler with a wicked sense of humour.

Despite wanting to be a cowboy, a footballer for Spurs or a petrol station attendant as a child, it was actually her insistence on reading all of the football results from the newspapers aloud in the kitchen that she discovered her calling. That and her primary school teacher’s description of her voice as a foghorn that she needed to learn to control.

Her years spent at the BBC as a newsreader on Radio 4, as well as the voice of the headlines on the popular News Quiz have made her a household name, along with the football results on Five Live, while her late night broadcasts of the shipping forecast set fishermen off the coasts of the country into a frenzy – with some even sending her their own poetic verses.

“I was chatting to someone and she said, ‘oh my – you sound awfully like yourself’. If I ever write another book I think that will have to be the title. I just thought that was a wonderful quotation," she told the audience, reflecting on the fine balance of being a private person doing a very public job. "I deliberately didn't want to try TV because I didn't like the idea of being recognised everywhere I went. I feel I have got the best of both worlds because it is nice when people recognise you by voice."

In her time she has had to deliver some of the biggest stories to have broken in our lifetimes, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 7/7 London terror attacks and the Lockerbie bombing, often seeing her go live on air and sight-reading her scripts.

But despite her measured delivery, she revealed humour was a vital part of the job, having only lost control on two occasions - famously on The Today Programme involving the unfortunate surname of an international diplomat and a beached sperm whale.

"Getting the giggles live on air only happened to me twice in 28 years, which I don't think is a very bad strike rate given how often people try to make you laugh," she said.

“A swan is very calm and serene on the surface, but paddling like mad under the water and that is very much what it is like to be a newsreader,” she said. “You have mayhem going on in the studio around you but you have to be calm and pretend nothing is going on.”