He’s normally the one dishing out the questions – whether to political leaders on Radio 4’s Today programme or to quivering wrecks in the Mastermind chair.

But the boot will be firmly on the other foot when John Humphrys takes part in this year’s Bob Friend Memorial Lecture hosted by the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent’s Medway campus.

Bob Friend was a journalist who worked on Sky News when it started in 1989. He died from lung cancer in 2008, and the University of Kent’s Centre for Journalism hosts an annual lecture in his memory.

The centre also has a Bob Friend Memorial Scholarship which awards one first-year journalism student with £3,500 and a fully-funded four-week internship at Sky News. This year's scholar is Boglarka Kosztolanyi.

Sky’s Adam Boulton will join Mr Humphrys at this year’s lecture in the Pilkington Building tonight.

Mr Boulton visited Medway during November’s by-election where he interviewed Medway Messenger editor Bob Bounds on polling night.

Mr Humphrys, 71, started his journalism career at TWW, a commercial television channel based in Wales. He joined the BBC in 1966 as the district reporter for Liverpool and the Northwest. As a foreign correspondent, he covered the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. He went on to be the main presenter of Nine O’Clock News and joined Today in 1987.