My greatest mistake: Martin Bell, former BBC correspondent and MP

'Impatient, I left the Golan Heights and went to the West Bank. Then the Israelis blitzed the place - and I missed it'

My greatest mistake was during the Six Day War in 1967, which was, by definition, a very short war. I was there with my cameraman reporting for the BBC. The Israeli forces had not attacked, and in preparation for anything that might happen, I had settled myself in a great spot in upper Galilee. I was in a prime position, with a panoramic view of the Golan Heights before me. I sat there, and then sat there some more, and then I got really impatient. After a couple of hours, I just couldn't sit there any more, so I left and went to the West Bank in search of something to report. I found a fairly routine story, but while I was there, the real happenings broke out on the Golan Heights. The forces blitzed the place, and I wasn't there to see it. Patience was never my strong point. Everything had been laid out in front of me, and instead I abandoned it to get a humdrum story.

The other mistake that really stays in my mind happened in 1973. It was the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon, and I was reporting there for the BBC. With me was Bernard Hesketh, one of the most kind and gentlemanly cameramen that there ever was. We started filming while Beirut was intact but on the verge of falling apart, but we had a problem getting the footage out, because there were no satellites in those days. After consideration, I thought we should try to ship the film by boat to Cyprus. This turned out to be a very bad decision. The Commodore hotel that we were staying in was full of spies, and someone must have overheard our conversation because when we got to the port, the Beirut authorities were waiting. They arrested Bernard and threw him in jail. Although they did let him out, and we were able to fly to Bombay to cover the famine in Maharashtra, I felt deeply responsible for Bernard's ordeal. Afterwards, because of this, I wrote a letter of resignation to my editor at Television News. Luckily for me, he didn't accept it, but I always consider that plan to ship film as one of the more disastrous in my career.

A more recent regret stems from when I was running for MP in Tatton. On election night I promised my constituents that I would only serve for one term. I very much regret that.