A seemingly innocuous fall from his 6ft-tall penny-farthing bicycle led broadcaster Jeremy Vine to an unexpected discovery about his heart, prompting significant lifestyle changes.
The incident, which occurred near his home two years ago, revealed a minor cardiac issue that Vine believes may have inadvertently extended his life.
Recounting the accident, the BBC Radio 2 presenter said: "Stupidly, I went over some grass and there was a divot and I flew over the handlebars and thought, ‘I’m not going to survive this’.
“I was knocked out, but I didn’t suffer any great long-term effect." However, the subsequent hospital visit proved more revealing.
"But when they took me to A&E they gave me all these scans and said, ‘The only thing you need to worry about is that you’ve got a tiny bit of calcification in your heart’," he explained.
"It’s the classic thing where someone has an accident and then you discover something else. So I then thought, I’m going to look after myself a bit better."
The accident happened two years ago and the BBC Radio 2 presenter and host of the eponymous Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5, who turned 60 last year, is more careful about his well-being.
He recalled: "I started taking statins, lifting weights and being more serious about cycling to work. It’s weird, isn’t it, if falling off my penny farthing has given me an extra 10 years of life.
"I’ve tried to give up chocolate, which is very difficult because I love chocolate. If I go to Pizza Express I would probably order a salad. Is that bad? It’ll probably buy me an extra day or two. But if I get to about 82, I’m having pizza every day."
In-between his broadcasting work, he has found time to write Turn The Dial For Death, the second mystery in his cosy crime series featuring radio host-turned amateur sleuth, Edward Temmis.
The story opens with a doctor who is found dead in the woods, shot through the heart with a crossbow, but the tale also weaves in the subjects of radiation poisoning, coercive control and the death of a child.
The cosy element is the idyllic setting in Sidmouth, Devon, where Vine, who is married to journalist Rachel Schofield, spent many happy summers when their two daughters were young.
“I was always thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a decent murder here?’”
Many authors don’t like the term ‘cosy’ crime, but Vine doesn’t mind it.
“I struggled with the word ‘cosy’ but in the end I decided not to mind because it’s a whole genre that’s happened as a result of the great (Richard) Osman.
“Weirdly, I think Agatha Christie was the greatest, went out of fashion and is now back to being the greatest, and those of us who love her are so pleased there’s now a demand for books like hers, by that I mean classic English whodunits.”
There is some similarity between Vine’s fictional radio host and himself, he admits.
“There’s a performance element, a bit of curiosity, an ability to concentrate and a shortened attention span when things aren’t holding your interest.
“Because of the politics of the radio station, he’s doing this late night talk show and he knows the listeners love it, but he never knows whether he’s fully appreciated. That’s not based on me at Radio 2, by the way. The bosses are always nice to me.”
Vine has himself been the victim of crime over the years. He was beaten up as a student and has been the victim of stalkers, he recalls.
These days, he doesn’t go on social media as much as he once did because he thinks it’s taken a turn for the worse.
“I maybe tweet twice a day whereas I used to tweet 30 times a day. I’m on Instagram much more which is a lot more holistic and a lot more gentle.
“One of my listeners called up and said that social media is the new asbestos. I thought, that’s a brilliant line. It (social media) just ends up with lots of people insulting each other.
“It’s basically replaced fighting in pubs, as far as I can tell.”
With his radio and TV work, he has to keep abreast of current affairs and says that he is constantly topping up his knowledge through different news items – and occasionally loses his way.
“The classic is where you have two guests who are roughly the same age, maybe two 30-year-old women or 60-year-old men and you don’t know which one is which and you’ve got two names.”
There are also people who appear on programmes as part of a misunderstanding, which can throw a curve ball, he says.
“I remember a guy on the Today programme years ago who arrived and he was on the line speaking about how he was able to play a tune by putting his hand under his armpit. So, they said, ‘Can you just play some notes for us?’ and he did, though not very well.
“It turned out he was the wrong guest and was actually on (the programme) to talk about the Asian fresh food business market, but he went along with it.”
There are occasions, he admits, when he gets nervous interviewing senior politicians or VIPs, which he thinks is a good thing.
He recalls meeting Rachel Reeves when she was Shadow Chancellor and she had decided that she wasn’t going to talk about economics, but wanted to talk about herself as a person.
“The offer that we had from the Shadow Treasury team was that she would come in and play me a game of chess, because she was a teenage chess prodigy. So I had this strange thing of playing chess with Rachel Reeves in the studio. She was pretty amazing. She completely smashed me.”
A world away from that chess match, Reeves returned to the studio recently and Vine wondered if, given the difficult business of government, she would have been broken by it all – but she wasn’t.
“I was just wondering how I’d find her and I must say she looked to be in really good spirits.”
He’s already finished his third book in the series and confesses that he’s really interested in true crime.
“I think the reason we love cosy crime is it makes it somehow more bearable, because when you get into true crime and watch those documentaries, it’s shocking what people do to each other.”
Vine gets up daily at 4.30am to write 400 words before going to work at Channel 5.
“The classic piece of advice that Richard Osman gave me is to write something every day, so you’re always pushing forward.”
He has had approaches for his own crime novels to be adapted for screen, he says.
“Some producers have knocked the first book (Murder On Line One) into a TV script which they are trying to sell. But TV at the moment is cash-strapped so that means I think we’ll be fishing around for a while – but I think it will happen.
“We did have a really firm offer last year, then that fell through, so I’ve learned not to really trust in it.”
For now, he has no thoughts of slowing down.
“I just love what I do – and when you love what you do, it’s quite easy.”
Turn The Dial For Death by Jeremy Vine is published by HarperCollins, priced £20. Available now.
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