Video never killed the radio star, at least not in my house, anyway.

On those rare occasions when I have not been out visiting the sick, practising the harpsichord or pursuing my extensive list of other improving hobbies, there’s no denying that the small screen has held a number of must-see attractions for me.

What’s more I cannot, hand on heart, say it’s just been the news and the nature programmes.

Television at Clee Towers has involved a succession of guilty pleasures down the years, from Tiswas to Brookside, from Freaky Eaters to Ten Years Younger.

But radio has always been there to feed my better nature, reeling me in with shows like Women’s Hour, Front Row, The Moral Maze and, er, The Archers.

I’m still in mourning for Humphrey Lyttleton, feeling the loss of not just the man, but also the incomparable I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue.

Sadly, I cannot imagine the show ever taking to the air again without Humph to recount the adventures of the lovely Samantha, the show’s hostess, who was always on his right hand.

But radio has been more than that to me. It’s been my auditory escape hatch when, as has increasingly become the case, telly has grown too grim to contemplate with an easy conscience or a settled stomach.

When the bush tucker and race rows of reality TV were too much to endure, when the quiz shows and chat shows turned from amusing to abusive, there was always the choice of switching off the goggle-box and tuning in the wireless where, as somebody once said, the pictures are so much better.

It’s always talk radio, of course. There was once was a time when I could listen to Radio One for more than five seconds without wanting to take a hammer to the presenter, but those days have long since fled.

Mornings now are more likely to find me listening to the Five Live Breakfast or the Today programme, being eased into consciousness by the charming Shelagh Fogarty or the velvet-voiced Charlotte Green.

But a threat is looming ever closer, casting a shadow on my listening pleasure. Its name is interactivity. Almost by the day, the radio has become infested with more and more exhortations for us to email, text, phone in our views about anything from extraordinary rendition to whether or not cats can successfully be trained to give blood.

Worse than that, we are then subjected to the results of these exhortations. Dave from Reading has faxed his opinion on Obama’s latest pronouncement and Sharon from Ipswich has texted to say that bankers do not deserve their six-figure bonus packages.

It is a slippery slope, and at the foot of it is that ghastly invention, the phone-in, where Nicky Campbell, the dark side of public service broadcasting, lies in wait for the unwary.

Switch on Five Live after 9am and you are besieged, not by the authoritative, informative voice of the BBC, but by a tidal wave of strident bickering and wrangling between the sort of people well away from whom you would move your beach towel on your hard-earned holiday.

Phone-ins are said to be beloved of broadcasters because they are so cheap, and because it appears to show that they are listening to their audience.

Perhaps. I would need some persuading that the bulk of the audience wants to hear a phone-in instead of well-informed and reasoned debate.

Nevertheless, I can accept these things if they are confined to a specific programme, I know when it is on, and I can give it a very wide berth. But please, Auntie, spare me from interactivity. I don’t want to get involved – I just want to listen to the news.