Some of the audience, it has to be said, may have felt a little short-changed that this talk, taking its name from Humphrys's latest book, In God we Doubt, about his failed spiritual quest, was not solely a religious debate.

But the vast majority will have gone home feeling thoroughly entertained over an hour and a half by an amusing and engaging host.

Humphrys, we were told, had just returned from Basra, but he looked far from travel-weary as he took to the stage, smiling and tanned.

Settling into a comfortable chair, he was relaxed from the start as he launched into an eclectic mix of delightful anecdotes (how a soap star contestant on Celebrity Mastermind thought Cheerios might be the breakfast cereal associated with prison), disgruntlements about modern life (lack of grammar, the 'compensation culture'), and poignant moments from his 'ringside seat on history'.

Here was a man who had been a journalist for 50 years, 21 years as presenter of Radio Four's iconic Today programme, and who had interviewed an incredible amount of people (apart from the Queen who gave him the royal rebuff).

And this all proved a fascinating insight.

He told, very humorously, how he had tried to get the better of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He would throw her by asking her about the essence of Christianity.

When she answered 'love' or 'charity' or some such thing, he would then go on about the lack of that in the society she had created.

"Foolish, foolish", he laughed.

"I looked her straight in the eye and she looked back at that point of the middle of the forehead between my eyes, she didn't pause for a millisecond, and she snapped back with the one word answer, 'choice', and I thought 'bugger'!"

Humphrys got onto the issue of God eventually, and explained the idea behind his book.

A Radio Four programme he had presented, Humphrys in Search of God, had attracted an unprecedented number of letters and emails from the public, making it clear to him that the question of God was an overwhelming important one to the people of this country.

He did not 'find' God personally, settling for doubt as the only acceptable position.

After all the laughter of the anecdotes, it was a serious and poignant moment when he described the event that had turned him off any sort of 'merciful God'.

This was the Chechnyan school hostage crisis of 2004 when, after three days of captivity by rebels, hundreds, including 186 schoolchildren, were slaughtered.

Humphrys invited the Archbishop of Canterbury onto the Today programme the next day to somehow try to explain this, but he was not convinced.

"I couldn't reconcile a merciful God with what was happening in the world, and I lost my faith," he said.

His position of 'angry agnostic' was not one he was particularly comfortable with, but the only one he could come up with after extensive searchings.

"I am left in this, admittedly hopelessly unsatisfactory position, of some doubt," he concluded.

And even if his sentiments were alien, you couldn't help but admire his holding-his-hands-up frankness.


Sue Gilson



A response from Ken Benjamin, Chichester Baptist Church.

Humphrys was interesting and entertaining but talked on much wider themes than the advertising implied. I suspect your reviewer would say the same thing, he spoke about farming, proper use of grammar, chairing Mastermind, political interviews and then added some thoughts about belief in God.

Nevertheless most of the questions were around the issues of belief.

I therefore responded more to his book than his talk. Looking particularly at who offers the best explanation for creation or the start of our world, for our morals and consciences and for our sense of purpose.

I think it went well, but I would have to admit that we were both largely 'preaching to the choir!' For me to tell those willing to come to my church that the arguments for the existence of God are compelling was about the same as Humphrys saying to a Chichester Festivities audience that grammatical standards have slipped and it's just not good enough!