During my apprenticeship in TV production I had also witnessed mistakes I was determined to avoid. At one time I worked for a horribly indecisive executive and discovered how his dithering disabled even the most talented team. Could we send out a crew or not? Could we book this or that presenter? Would he ever choose a title, or send off a billing? Please, we used to beg him silently, make up your mind; right or wrong, just decide. It was such hell working for this particular man that I resolved, if my time came, always to be decisive. When I became producer/presenter of That’s Life! I turned out to be as decisive as a machine gun. But who wants to work for a machine gun?

At the time, when my late husband Desmond Wilcox questioned me – Desmond was always the most disarming boss because he could at the same time be both furious and funny – I explained my ferocious management style by saying that, although I had a wonderful job, it was also extremely exacting. With the programme’s high ratings came an equally high profile, and every week we walked a dangerous tightrope. A wrong detail could, and on one occasion did, cost the BBC a million pounds. So there was a great deal of stress in the production process, trying to ensure that each fact was in place every week. We had to be rigorous, and that knowledge made me tough on myself and on my team. Looking back, though, I was not only tough, but rough, and that wasn’t necessary.

As our audiences grew – at one time we were the most popular show on the air, even beating Coronation Street – so the pressure increased to keep outdoing ourselves. A talking dog had to be followed by a counting horse and a ping-pong-playing kitten. We told the story of Ben Hardwick, the toddler who transformed transplant surgery in this country by proving how crucial the gift of life can be. We exposed a boarding school owned and run by paedophiles, and they went to prison for their crimes against the children they were supposed to be looking after. We launched ChildLine.

All this material had to be gleaned from thousands of letters and phone calls which poured in to That’s Life! then to be checked, scripted and honed. It was fascinating and exciting work, but it was non-stop, seven days a week, and it was stressful. Perhaps that unrelenting pressure made me more impatient, or maybe that’s just my excuse. I have another excuse – one many women will recognise – which is that I was juggling two lives. During the 21 years the series lasted, I married and started a family. Very soon I was beset by the guilt every working mother knows only too well. I’m sure my sleepless nights shortened my temper and sharpened my tongue.

Who did I think I was?

Alas, the bully I used to be at my worst is duplicated today in production offices all over the country. And too often it’s the women who are doing the bullying. In my experience, a lot of the men have learned to treat people better than their predecessors did. The male tyrants who once barked out orders liberally spattered with the f-word left the television companies, presumably to take charge of restaurant kitchens or become tabloid newspaper editors. They were replaced with kindly, collaborative “new men” who displayed pictures of their babies on their office walls. But, at the same time, many “new women” seemed to move in the opposite direction. Whether it was to compensate for a perceived feminine weakness, or because they were modelling themselves on the worst of the men, or just because there resides in many women the capacity to turn into the Wicked Witch of the West, too many have adopted the hectoring style of The Weakest Link. They take delight in shooting down ideas rudely and impatiently, humiliating juniors in public and reducing inexperienced or vulnerable members of staff to tears.

An example from the past: Desmond Wilcox, then an independent producer with his own company, went to pitch an idea to a feisty woman channel controller. She spent the whole meeting reading her own cuttings, which her press office had collected for her. She didn’t once look up from the file, or respond at all, except with a brusque shake of the head. At the end she dismissed him: “What a boring load of old ideas, Desmond. I can’t think why you brought them to me.” This was to one of the most senior of television documentary makers, who went on to win big audiences and prestigious awards. But not for her channel.

Another couple of examples. A female commissioner of factual programmes demanded the impossible, nobody dared stand up to her, and when the team cut corners to try to satisfy her, she blamed them for the inevitable and very public row. Their careers have never recovered. Another very talented woman producer is renowned for regularly reducing her most junior female staff to tears by humiliating and belittling them. The human resources team have a bulging file of complaints against her, but none of the juniors dares to follow up their complaints, because they fear they will never be employed again if they do.

Why does it matter? Because television is desperate for good ideas and good ideas only come with confidence. We women know that. Many of us are mothers or gardeners and we understand the importance of warmth and security for toddlers and seedlings. In our industry, the prevailing winds are cold and create a climate of insecurity and anxiety. Where once the trades unions could protect their members, now they are largely powerless. I wish I could say that the new women in positions of responsibility have taken over as guardians of the weak, but they haven’t.

Young people nowadays probably start as work-experience runners, working for nothing. Then, if they’re lucky, they are promoted to become researchers. If one inexperienced recruit can’t stand the pace, there’ll be another 200 eager hopefuls waiting to break down the office door. So young people have to take the 16-hour days, with no meal breaks, no days off, hideous accommodation and uncomfortable or downright dangerous travelling conditions, because if they complain, they don’t get rehired. I’m told that even on the most prestigious shows, talented young people burn out, get discarded and are replaced. It seems that a great many of them put up with being bullied or exploited, all too often by women bosses, because they dare not confront or complain. Why don’t the men working alongside these women point out to them the damage they inflict? Because criticising a woman boss is so politically incorrect no man dares go down that route.

They attacked me furiously

Maybe that’s the most effective way to change others. After a discussion about female bosses on Woman’s Hour, one of the industry unions got in touch with me, agreeing with my conclusions because they, too, have uncovered many instances of young people being bullied, all too often by female bosses. So the union welcomed my suggestion that the industry should launch an anonymous questionnaire to map the problem and discover just how prevalent it is. Perhaps that might supply enough evidence to hold up a mirror to the women who bully.

While I’m being politically incorrect, I might as well admit to other disappointments. In creative areas, too, the picture is less rosy than I had hoped. I used to believe that once women were making more decisions, we’d have more ideas, producing more variety and a wider range of programmes. But many women seem compelled simply to prove that if men are competitive, we can out-compete them. We clone and plagiarise success until the schedules are filled with carbon copies. How many antique auctions, how many property shows, how much cookery, how many makeovers can the day hold? Recently I went to the Grierson Awards, which celebrate the best of film and television documentaries, and heard about the wonderful factual programmes that are still being made. I couldn’t think why I hadn’t seen them – until one of the award winners revealed that his prize-winning film had been transmitted at quarter-to-two in the morning.

I hope what I’ve described is just a passing phase. Now that we women have gained our rightful place in the industry, let’s not just be as good as the men, let’s be better in all areas. Let’s be more humane, more civilised; let’s treat our teams properly and our audiences with respect. That way we’ll have more talent to draw on and better programmes to enjoy. There are some shining examples of women who invent brilliant original programmes and run their teams with courtesy and sensitivity. If we can make them our exemplars, instead of trying to emulate the worst male tyrants of the past, later generations will justly be able to describe this as The Age of Women – the new Golden Age of television.