Kindly but firm columnist and author with the caring manner who is leaving LBC after 15 years. Pioneer of broadcast therapy with the unshockable ear. Clear, patient and concise Agony Uncle who has written books both on sex and Wagner.

Counsellor who has lived with another counsellor for 18 years and claims to be happily unmarried despite press reports about his love triangle. Man who won an open scholarship to Oxford and then had a drop-out phase cultivating snowdrops and selling apples in Devon.

On the couch today is Phillip Hodson, the unmarried marriage counsellor turned sex therapist turned psychotherapist. HOD-IN, as the registration number on his grey Mercedes estate declares.

He wasn’t specifically dressed for the part, wearing brick-coloured shirt, jeans, jokey yellow-framed specs and metal girly stuff around his neck and finger (a gold chain and turquoise and silver enamel ring).

‘I like jewellery and body adornment – but I worry it’s a bit wimpish.’ He is soft and markedly feminine in his manner. ‘I make a point of it,’ he says. ‘In my work I have to use a lot of the intuitive side of the mind and get away from straightforwardly male, competitive categories.’ And what do his clothes reveal about him? ‘That I ride a bicycle.’ He reckons it wrong to turn up at counselling sessions in tennis gear – so he dons a three-piece suit – but he likes to dress casually.

‘I have to question which I prefer and which is the real me. And I have to say the jeans.’

As a child, he got his parents to write a note to school saying that he suffered from ‘constriction around the neck’. ‘A load of baloney – but I was 11 before I deigned to wear the school tie.’

He sits back in his chair, in front of a feast he has generously provided. He suffered from obesity and then near-anorexia as a child – and he eats noticeably little for lunch.

He’s tall, brown-eyed and reasonably athletic-looking with a glowing complexion and receding hairline. ‘I carried the hang-ups of being a fat child for a very long time’ – he presses his fingertips against each other, and looks in the air to talk. ‘I went from nearly 15 stone aged 15, to 11 stone at 16: from feeling almost totally unacceptable to the opposite sex to being told I was fairly good looking. I didn’t believe that for years.’ He then goes on about his thighs and waist and the proportions of his body – talking without stopping, and answering questions more extensively than anyone I’ve ever interviewed.

He is an interesting man who fancies himself. He’s also truthful, very intense about his inner world – more than in touch with his feelings – and with a rather awkward sense of humour. He is also noticeably keen and leans forward enthusiastically.

Listeners have a fantasy of him. ‘They think I’m a dreadful corrupting fool who only talks about sex on the radio. Most people seem to think I have limitless sympathy, understanding and the patience of a saint. In my personal life, I’m often the complete opposite of the way I am in public, being impatient and quick to react, sometimes without thinking.’ He say he’s feeling a bit rough from the weekend. And that he’s not performing ‘much’ now. ‘But there’s that bit in me that says ‘you don’t want to screw anything up. What I say may be taken down and used in evidence both for and against.’ ‘

He gets more comfortable, and starts to look me in the eyes, when the male photographer arrives. They’re probably (he jokes) doing a bit of bonding, as they say in those circles.

So how would he describe himself? ‘I think fast and like a lot of stimulation and excitement, but I’m capable of backtracking and apologising. I have an enormous amount of energy which is almost a problem – I’ll work at something obsessionally until it’s done and then notice I haven’t slept for two nights. But I am able to relax.

‘I don’t really like change very much – I’m agreeable when someone says ‘do you want to come to the theatre in a month’, but the night before I’ll want to get out of it.’ (There’s a Sixties bit in him that wants life to go with mood.) ‘And I’ve worked very hard to have a unique job – and I like to have a lot of balls in the air at the same time.’

Is he as self-confident as he appears? ‘I find that difficult to answer, in the same way as I’m both extrovert and introvert. I can actually do anything. I can face almost any social situation. But the kind of work I do costs me. I still have a fear of failure.’ And does he think he’s intense? ‘I’m aware of it. It’s almost impossible in this sort of work not to be.’ So how would he describe his condition if he went to a shrink tomorrow? ‘I’d say that my mid-life crisis is defeating me. It isn’t actually – but it’s a struggle, and that’s why I’d be going.’ He’s 45 and says his crisis is not so much a physical thing as a feeling that he’s achieved certain goals that he was working towards. ‘And now I want time off. I’d like time for me.’

He speaks as if he’s broadcasting – a voice that is pleased with itself, slightly hypnotic and with a steadiness of pace. He talks articulately and quickly – and puts on voices, acts and does little role-plays. ‘My speech is leavened with bits of ‘sarf’ London or Oxford English as an ease-making thing.’ But which one’s him? ‘My mother always told me to speak properly. But it’s unfashionable to speak correctly – so I have to bend a bit.’

The former sex therapist had a reputation as a champion lover in his youth. ‘Malicious untruths were written about me. I never said ‘I can’t remember how many affairs I’ve had. You might as well ask me how many restaurants I’ve been to’.’ And, as he points out, even James Bond found himself impotent at Casino Royale.

Has this man, who was one of the first single marriage guidance counsellors, always had an ‘open relationship’? ‘No.’ He and his common-law wife are going to write a book on it. And what are his sexual signals? ‘At the moment, zero . . . But if I see someone I really like, I make it fundamentally and blatantly clear. I might even say ‘come away with me . . . ‘

‘I’m surprised to find that a lot of women like my very bigness.’ How big is he? ‘Ha ha 6ft 1in and very solid. Some people would say thick, ha ha . . . Sexuality for me is very much to do with moods, boldness, daring and imagination – not just appearance. I’ve never been conventionally attractive and people who’re attracted to me aren’t just looking for Mr Beefcake. ‘They like me because I’m very unpredictable and very funny. Humour’s high on the list of what’s sexually attractive. And some people like my big bottom.’

Why did he never marry? ‘The silly answer is because my father told me never to wed. I’m not someone who is over social. I don’t care too much for endorsement by other people. The marriage I have – though not legal – is the sort of relationship I want.’

He looks relaxed. ‘I like myself emotionally and psychologically. I’m on my side.’