Brought face to face with the author of his obituary and his own inevitable mortality, Edward Stourton is prompted to reflect on the life he has led and the events that have shaped him. Ed was born into a life of privilege: the son of expat parents in colonial Nigeria, he was sent back to Britain to be educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth, the public school now tarnished by revelations of decades of abuse. He then went up to Cambridge, where his life as an undergraduate gave him access to a network of future ministers, judges and newspaper editors. As a young journalist he reported first from party conferences and picket lines and then from war zones, witnessing the events making international headlines, from Haiti to Hong Kong, before returning home to join the infighting on BBC Radio 4's Today.