Crime writer PD James has won the BBC’s Nick Clarke award, the BBC College of Journalism reports.

She was given the award following her interview as a Radio 4 Today programme guest editor with the broadcaster’s director general Mark Thompson in December 2009.

The award is given in memory of Nick Clarke, former presenter of The World at One, who died in 2006.

In the interview, James told Thompson that the BBC seemed to have become a: “large and unwieldy ship…taking on more and more and more cargo, building more decks to accomodate it, recruiting more officers all very comfortably cabined usually at salaries far greater than their predecessors enjoyed, with a crew that was somewhat discontented and some a little mutinous, the ship rather sinking close to the Plimsoll line and the customers feeling they have paid too much for their journey and not quite sure where they are going or indeed who is the captain”.