“An interviewer asked me afterwards, did I think ‘this is going to do tremendous things for my career?’ No I didn’t.

“When everything is unfolding around you, you are thinking: ‘I hope we will all get out of this okay’.”

Alex said she was “stunned” by the death of fellow war correspondent Marie Colvin, who was killed in Homs, Syria, in February.

“Marie was in Syria the week after I was. She was staying in the same house as one of my colleagues.

“Syria is a ferociously frightening place.

“I couldn’t help but think ‘but for the grace of God it could have been me’. I was really stunned by her death.”

Shells hit the house in which veteran Sunday Times foreign correspondent Marie, 56, was staying. She was killed by a rocket while trying to escape.

But Alex tells me that Marie’s death has made her more determined to continue reporting from the frontline.

Alex said: “The Leveson Inquiry has shown how awful some journalists are, but on the flipside to that and the hacking scandal, what Marie Colvin’s death has shown is that there is an awful lot of valid journalism.

“Passionate journalists from Sky, CNN and the BBC are risking their lives to uncover injustices around the world.”

Senior media lecturer and lecture organiser John Mair posed the question: “Who is Alex Crawford?”

Looking puzzled, Alex pauses for a moment for two before replying: “A mother first and foremost You have other people to look after.’’

Alex has three daughters and a son - Nat is 16, Frankie, aged 14, Maddy, aged 12 and ten-year-old Flo. They live in South Africa, where Alex is based, with her husband, the former Indepdent racing journalist Richard Edmonson. He gave up his job when Alex was appointed a special correspondent for Sky News.

She has dismissed the ‘mum-of-four goes to war’ line because she says no-one questions the motives of fathers who go to war.

But it is her family who keep her sane.

She says: “There’s a real gear change when I go home. My kids do not want to know the ins and outs of revolution. They want me to come to the school play or help them with their homework. It brings you back to earth.”

* Alex’s book, Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat, priced £14.99, is based on her experiences in Libya.