From our own correspondent Charles Wheeler

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Sir Charles Wheeler has been called "the reporters' reporter". He was a master of the art of observation, a skill which he employed many times over the years on From Our Own Correspondent. Here, in his preface to the book The Best of From Our Own Correspondent Volume Three, he describes why FOOC was close to his heart.

Sir Charles was the BBC's longest serving foreign correspondent

"Thanks for your Sikkim FOOC. Just made Saturday morning programme. Regards Roger," the cable read.

By then I was back at base in New Delhi.

Filing from Sikkim - this was 1959 - had presented communications problems unique even to the Indian subcontinent: no radio station, no radio circuits to London, not even a telex.

In my own case, I might... spend the whole of an agonising night, at the end of a tiring week, writing and rewriting FOOC

But the night clerk at the tiny, sleepy post office was equal to the challenge.

"We shall send your message to BBC London by Morse code," he announced. Like me, he knew how to send the letters SOS ( ...---... ) as well as the signal for erase: ........ (8 or more dots).

But little else. Fortunately there was a book.

We learned as we went on. It was dawn before Calcutta acknowledged safe reception of our dots and dashes, and promised to transcribe and telex our effort to London.

An inspirational editor

The "Roger" in my cable is Roger Lazar, editor of From Our Own Correspondent for 13 years, starting in 1955. None of us ever said no to Roger. Partly because we all loved him dearly; no team of foreign correspondents could have had a more considerate editor.

Say what you think as well as what you know, as a result of being where you are

But it was also that he stretched us, bringing our reporting up to standards that some of us did not know we could reach.

In my own case, I might dash off a two-minute news piece in 20 minutes and sometimes spend the whole of an agonising night, at the end of a tiring week, writing and rewriting FOOC.

It was an outlet that raised our self-respect. Also, it was a programme that people listened to. And occasionally - this was the ultimate reward - one's piece would be printed in The Listener.

Freedom from the constraints of news

When I had left television production in 1958 to become a foreign correspondent, my chief at Lime Grove warned me that by joining News I would be walking into an editorial strait-jacket.

Then in a bar I ran into Rene Cutforth, who had returned, permanently embittered, from reporting the war in Korea. He had - so he claimed - punctured his resignation speech by throwing an ink bottle at the editor in chief.

"The bastards won't even allow you to say it's raining unless you quote a source", he growled.

My advice ... would be to sail as close to the wind as possible, as long as you get it right Hugh Carleton Greene

But times were changing. Hugh Carleton Greene, who had been the Daily Telegraph's man in Berlin until he was expelled by Goebbels, vanquished the old bete noir of only quoting sources.

"My advice," said Greene, "would be to sail as close to the wind as possible, as long as you get it right."

FOOC, of course, was always the outlet for that kind of reporting, and happily it still is.

As every schoolboy knows the BBC has no editorial policy - its correspondents are enjoined not to editorialise, in the sense of reporting from a fixed ideological position, and they show bias at their peril. What they do is interpret the news.

"Analyse" is the word favoured in high places, which I would translate as this: say what you think as well as what you know, as a result of being where you are.

From Our Own Correspondent is broadcast on Thursdays at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4 and on Saturdays at 1130 BST. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.