Day in the life of a journo: Meeting the Westborough Baptist Church

The phone was in silent mode, I had my three peice suit on, the posters behind me had gone from the bedroom walls and I was sweating slightly into my shirt. I was ready for their call.

I think it's safe to say that this was the most daunting interview I had ever faced. I'd seen the documentary that Louis Theroux did - "The Most Hated Family In America" it proudly proclaimed. The documentary was an overnight success, bringing them a tonne of publicity. They had a Supreme Court judgement in their favour of freedom of expression, and even President Bush changed the law against them protesting so close to funerals. To say I was nervous was an understatement.

So the call came in, my back stiffened and I pressed answer call. Sat on the screen opposite me somewhere a few thousand miles away was their media spokesperson Steve Drain. He smiled and we launched in to our interview.

My impressions of him (as a representative of the group were this). Utter bemusement. Honestly, if I did not know what he stood for in life, I could have been chatting to anybody on the street. He struck me as a remarkably intelligent man, indeed he did confuse me at one point with a reply to one of my questions. Like all members, he believed that we would all perish in hell for not turning to God.

"Every day we get death threats, our church has been bombed, our church has been set on fire. People have used their powers to take our jobs, to take our children away from us. I've had people come up to me and threaten to assault me with a 2 X 4 iron bar".

It was an utterly bizarre situation, because if I didn't know he was a member of the WBC he could have been anyone. I told him about my time in the USA, about my record collection and in turn he talked about his appreciation for British rock. He asked me about Jacqui Smith, and how she banned him from entering the UK - and all the time I didn't detect any hint in his voice that he was insincere about what he was talking about.

Steve used to do philosophy at university so his arguments were airtight in his own way. I think the main thing that struck me was that he was so nice. Don't get me wrong, I could never sympathise with their own views - but I thought (and I told him) "I expected you to be this monster. Everybody knows the views that you hold, but I didn't expect you to be so polite and courteous towards me". I did ask him "Why haven't you told me I'm going to hell yet?" His reply was "Because you've been respectful in the way you approached me, but you should always know that there's an implication in everything I'm saying to you there".

It's left me with a feeling that perhaps good and evil isn't necesarily evident. Here was a man who admitted to having thousands of people following him on twitter "just to send him abuse", yet he told me what a polite and respectful man I was, and how much he loves our music scene.

The saying "never judge a book by it's cover" comes to mind here...