Lord Longford is as at ease with the Queen and Princess Anne as he is with Moors Murderer Myra Hindley and serial killer Dennis Nilsen, writes Zahra Akkerhuys.

He is a man who can straddle two different worlds and for the past 60 years has been visiting criminals in prisons the length and breadth of the country - when he is not rubbing shoulders with the great and the good in the House of Lords.

He is, without a doubt, a remarkable man but has been endlessly criticised for calling for Hindley's release and campaigning for lighter sentences for criminals.

Commentators' views on him are usually polarised - he is either portrayed as mad or a saint-in-waiting. His Catholic faith means that he sees visiting prisons and their inmates as a vocation and, at the age of 94, he is showing no signs of retiring from duty.

"I could not retire from prison visiting - it would be like asking for permission to leave this world. Why do I do it? Why do you do your job? I love prison visiting and think there is a tremendous demand for anyone who is prepared to do it," he says.

The peer has just published his penal diaries, spanning the years 1995 to 1999, in which he has recorded entries about his visits to some of the country's most notorious criminals. The release coincides with the publication tomorrow of a report by the Prison Ombudsman Stephen Shaw. The ombudsman's department has been investigating complaints made by prisoners about alleged poor treatment they have received in jail.

The complaints go to the ombudsman once the prisoner has exhausted all other means of redress.

It is expected to heavily criticise some methods employed by prison authorities.

Little complaint has ever been made by inmates about the presence of Lord Longford. His latest diaries document the intimacy he shares with the killers and rapists who he considers to be his friends.

This is a man whose professional and personal lives were transformed in Oxford. The Hon Frank Pakenham married his university sweetheart Elizabeth in 1931 and he remained in the city, and started his prison visits, while he was a don at Christ Church College. He also served in Oxford as a Labour councillor for Cowley following the local government election of 1936.

He remembers: "In my capacity as a Labour councillor I found it was my duty to get to know the poor and distressed and bring them comfort so, perhaps inevitably, I found my way into the prison.

"I had been into prisons before but I became an official visitor and was therefore given a special permit.

"One of the first prisoners I visited in Oxford made me rather cynical. He was a solicitor and I felt very sympathetic to him.

"He told me it was his first conviction and that he was finding it difficult to cope with the fact that he used to be a professional person and now, here he was in prison. He continues: "I can't exactly remember the exact details of the case or a great deal about it but it was rather unusual. I believe he was serving eight years for doctoring markings on birds eggs.

"But it turned out that he had eight previous convictions for other offences. It's not often prisoners lie to me but it taught me a great lesson."

As he casts his mind back more than 60 years, he also remembers visiting an arsonist who spent time at both Littlemore's psychiatric hospital and Oxford Prison.

"It meant that I was introduced very early on to the very fine difference between criminality and madness," he says.

Conditions in prisons then were grim and have improved immeasurably since the days when slopping out was part of the everyday routine.

But Lord Longford insists that going to prison is not the easy option.

"The actual conditions in prison have improved, but only in the same way that life outside prison has got better. "On a mental level, there are the same problem areas such as confinement, being at the mercy of the other prisoners and, of course, the stigma you carry."

And of course, he adds, the taking away of a basic human right like freedom is as powerful now as it ever was.

Lord Longford left Oxford at the end of the Second World War after standing for Parliament and being defeated by Quinton Hogg, later Lord Hailsham.

The city has changed beyond recognition since then, including Oxford Prison which, it was recently revealed, is soon to be transformed into a luxury hotel.

Lord Longford says: "I am most surprised at that. I would have thought they need all the prisons they can get given the problems with overcrowding that exist in prisons today.

"I hadn't visited Oxford Prison for quite a while anyway but I went to Bullingdon Prison, just outside Oxford, relatively recently."

He was recently made a life peer and given the nominal title of Lord Pakenham of Cowley, when hereditary peers were finally ousted from the House of Lords earlier this year.

His energy and enthusiasm for work remain undiminished, and at 94 he still splits his schedule between the Lords each day and at least two prison visits a week. Interviewing Lord Longford without tackling the issue of Myra Hindley would be like interviewing Paul McCartney and not asking about The Beatles. So would he comment on his friendship with her? Or is he too bored to talk about it now?

He says he no longer visits her because of the publicity his visits generate, but when it comes to Hindley, boredom could not be further from Lord Longford's mind.

He says: "Bored? Goodness me no - not in the least. I'm horrified about the way people talk about her, but certainly not bored with talking about her.

"Myra is a very good woman. She repents for what she has done. And the priest who is now her spiritual advisor says she is a truly spiritual woman. I am outraged when she is called a monster.

"Myra was infatuated with Ian Brady and fell under his spell. Are you married? Yes? Well presumably you are infatuated with your husband."

So strong is Lord Longford's conviction in Hindley's goodness that it seemed churlish to point out that my husband is not a child killer. Lord Longford is a living legend - and you certainly don't argue with living legends. He will go down in history for being one of the most controversial figures of his age but he would rather be remembered for other reasons.

As he recorded in his diary on Monday August 4 1997: "Half-hour interview on Radio Five - I was asked how I would like to be remembered.

"I replied: 'As a loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather, but above all a loving husband.'"