Professor Anthony Clare, who has died at 64, was one of the great voices of modern British radio. (See The Times’ obituary.) His series, In the Psychiatrist’s chair, which ran for nine years from 1982 was an unexpected hit. Its success owed everything to Clare’s sensitive questioning of figures as diverse as Tony Benn, Bob Monkhouse and Tom Sharpe. Clare’s peers mocked Clare as the pop psychiatrist, but lay listeners found the series surprisingly compelling.

He gently asked Raynor about her unhappy childhood, asking whether she had reflected and analysed its impact on her adult life. Similarly, Spike Milligan spoke movingly about the depression that blighted his life, while Peter Hall explained how insecurity drove him to work all hours – with the inevitable unhappy impact on his personal life. In many ways, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair blazed a trail for Britain’s celebrity culture, with Clare’s pursuit of the inner demons of the rich and famous. But his insights were far more sophisticated than anything resulting from Big Brother Britain.

I’ve written before on this blog about the power of radio. In the Psychiatrist’s Chair worked brilliantly as a radio programme: the intimacy of the medium was part of its appeal. It was no surprise that an attempt at a television version, Motives, fell flat.

I still have the BBC audio tape of Clare’s interviews with Raynor, Benn, Milligan and Hall. (Benn was the least revealing; small wonder that Clare avoided politicians as subjects.) I often wondered why the corporation didn’t make more of the series available. With luck, they’ll do so now to mark the passing of a radio legend.