Rebecca Hardy

Each and every line of Rebecca Hardy’s interviews is precisely weighted to seize her readers’ emotions. She builds drama with expertise, while excavating deep feelings with a rare tenderness and sensitivity. And her eye for a killer quote is absolutely unsurpassed. Little wonder, then, that her skill makes her one of the industry’s most envied and valuable interviewers. For is there another interviewer who can make readers weep with sorrow, shake their fist in rage, before, finally, allowing them to fully appreciate the power of the human spirit, quite like Hardy can?

Indeed, it is almost impossible to read her exclusive interview with Emma Webber, mother of the murdered Nottingham student Barnaby Webber, without being moved to tears. Hardy’s sensitivity at dealing with this grieving woman is all too apparent. Webber’s fury by the failings of the criminal justice system which let her son’s killer roam the streets is also given full voice by Hardy - and all is adorned with this most accomplished of interviewer’s ability to weave in small, domestic details which reveal so much. Who could fail to be stricken by the paragraph which notes: ‘Barney's absence is everywhere in this house, right down to the calendar on the kitchen wall that has a column for each family member. Last year there were four names. Now there are three.’

Another extraordinary exclusive which gripped and moved Mail readers was a joint interview with Heston Blumenthal and his wife Melanie. The depths of despair to which they descended as Melanie was forced to section her husband - seized by a life-threatening mania caused by his bipolar condition - is described in pinprick detail by Hardy. World-renowned chef he may be, but Hardy paints a picture of a very human vulnerability, and all too universal emotions. As she concludes using a quote from Melanie: ‘‘It’s all about love… Heston may be a celebrity, a brand, a business but he is, most importantly, a human. He is my husband and he is alive.’

An all too human grief - albeit one in the most extreme of circumstances - is the subject of Hardy’s third interview, a conversation with Christine Dawood, who lost her husband, Shahzada, and son, Suleman, in the Titan submersible disaster. Hardy gently unpicks an almost unimaginable trauma with true elegance, and Christine’s heightened emotions are palpable when she confesses to Hardy that despite not having graves for her loved ones, she feels them when she visits the ocean: 'The sea was warm enough for us to walk in and I truly felt them around me. I thought: 'This is such a gift. I don't need a grave because every time I am in the ocean I will be able to connect with them because they are part of it.’ An exquisite piece, by a master of her trade.