My Greatest Mistake: Libby Purves presenter & columnist

'I became editor of "Tatler". My baby was the most sensible person I met each day'

I had given up presenting the Today programme to go freelance because I wanted to have a baby and 3.30am starts are a powerful contraceptive. When the baby was three months old, I was headhunted: would I like to take over from Tina Brown and edit Tatler?

Condé Nast kept sending huge cars to fetch me and offering me money. I had never edited a magazine. I had no idea how they worked. I was a writer and radio presenter. I didn't even like Tatler. Tina Brown was smart, fashionably heartless and a hell of a networker. I was dishevelled and romantic, and could never remember who anybody was or why they were important.

But they told me I would be good at it. The mistake was shrugging and saying: "OK." I arrived at Vogue House, was "briefed" and started the job. It wasn't so bad. The staff were expert and less hostile than I had been warned. They taught me about magazines, and I was able to solve a few problems between the mag – newly taken over – and the parent organisation.

I still hated it. I didn't really like managing people, especially temperamental people who flounced off to Los Angeles if you criticised them. I was bored stiff by the socialite business and could never see why authors and artists who photographed well and were related to Tennants and the like were more important than real ones. My finest hour was commissioning a very funny piece on the internal politics of the old Sunday Times; the staff felt it woefully unsmart.

Magazines need editors who love them, and I didn't. I used to tell the baby that he was the most sensible person I'd met all day. So I resigned after three months and served out my notice, trying to persuade them that Mark Boxer had been the right man all the time. He took over, to everyone's relief. The staff made me a joke Tatler cover with my face on it and some rude coverlines. It was all a mad mistake, but I can't regret it.

'Radio: A True Love Story' by Libby Purves (Hodder & Stoughton, £15.99)