Former BBC journalist talks about her new life as a nun

Martina Purdy

Martina Purdy's decision to quit her job as one of BBC Northern Ireland's best known journalists and become a nun was a shock to many people last year. Now, over a year on, she has returned briefly to the BBC to speak about her vocation and her new way of life. She told BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme that her transformation still seems a bit strange, even to herself.

"If I'm going up the stairs in the convent, I catch my shadow - the shadow of a nun - and that kind of sometimes surprises me," she said.

Sr Martina's Talkback interview is one of a series of special in-depth conversations with well-known faces broadcast over the Christmas holidays.

Presenter William Crawley recounts how his former colleague was born in west Belfast and brought up in Canada, before returning to her native Northern Ireland in her mid-20s to work as a journalist. She spent 25 years in her chosen profession, 15 of them with the BBC in Belfast, where she held a high-profile position as a political correspondent.

To read the full report and hear the broadcast, see: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35102055

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