Stuart Maconie doesn’t exactly know how his event at the Saltaire Festival is going to go.

That’s not to say he isn’t prepared – as a broadcaster, journalist, writer and all-round wit and raconteur, he has a steady stream of anecdotes at his fingertips for his “An Evening With...” session on Thursday, September 13. But the exact direction of conversation will largely be determined by you, the audience.

Maconie, 52 – Wigan born but now living in the Midlands – likes to weave a good, long Q&A session into his appearances, and it’s exactly the fact that he wears so many hats that can mean each event is wildly different.

“I do many different things, which some might say means I’m a Jack of All Trades,” he says. “I prefer ‘renaissance man’. But the Q&A’s are always good fun because people know me from many different things – there will be people who know me from the radio, those who have read my books, and others who go back to my days on NME.”

Maconie, although a journalist of some standing – he was an assistant editor at the aforementioned New Musical Express, and has written for publications as diverse as Q, Mojo, the Times and Country Walking magazine – is primarily known these days for his Freak Zone music show on BBC 6 digital radio and his books.

His writing career has seen him travelling around Britain for a series of travelogues such as Pies And Prejudice, his exploration of the North, Adventures On The High Teas, when he went in search of the elusive “middle England”, and his latest, Hope And Glory, which sees him revisiting the places and events that shaped modern Britain from the Victorian era.

He’s something of a British Bill Bryson (“I’ll take that!” he says with satisfaction) and seems to have a sheer enjoyment and enthusiasm for people. “I did a Q&A at a festival in Wales,” he says. “The first question was from a chap asking what I thought of tax relief for charities. I told him I wasn’t sure that was really my area, and the next question was ‘where did you get your shoes?’.

“I love that eclectic mix of questions. It’s like when I’m in a pub and someone recognises me and I can tell they’re going to come up and say something, but I’ve no idea what they’ll want to talk about. I’ll get someone coming up to me after a show like this and apologising because they didn’t know anything about my radio career, they only know me from my books. But that’s fine with me.”

Stuart has been to Saltaire before – indeed, it features in Hope And Glory in a chapter on the model villages that sprung out of the industrial revolution – and is looking forward to his appearance this month.

“Saltaire has got real character and I love the sort of festival they put on. I love the quirkiness of it and all the different things – it’s not just about the music. I love Saltaire and I’m glad to be coming back.”

Stuart’s love of Britain and his interest in people collide with his latest project, just announced – The People’s Songs, a massive 50-part series which will air all next year on Radio 2. Maconie is in the process of choosing 50 classic popular songs – from We’ll Meet Again by Vera Lynn through to the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen and on to the Shamen’s Ebeneezer Goode and beyond – and will create an oral history of people talking about what those songs mean to them, and what they were doing when they released.

“It’s not going to be a rock critic’s view of these records,” he says. “It’s going to be ordinary people’s stories.”

Ordinary people who are going to determine the course this huge year-long series takes... just like they’re going to set the tone for Stuart’s evening at the Saltaire Festival.

  • An Evening With Stuart Maconie is on Thursday, September 13, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm.