Jane Garvey has paid tribute to her “remarkable” listeners as she presented her final Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 after fronting the show for 13 years. The broadcaster said presenting the show had taught her more about feminism, and that women were held to higher standards. “The terrible truth is that when I came to Woman’s Hour, I knew about feminism and I was a feminist. I’d wanted to be a radio presenter, and I’d become a radio presenter. So I thought ‘what are people complaining about?’ “During the course of this cataclysmic 13 years, I have learned for all sorts of reasons that women have to be better, we have to try harder, it is going to be tougher for us. I really am glad I’ve been able to play a small part in opening up a whole range of conversations.” Her last programme covered stories of birth, death, long Covid and the “everyday grind of ordinary life”. Garvey was interviewed by the author Elizabeth Day about her time on the show. She admitted to going “a bit wobbly” after listening to a montage that included clips from interviews with Penélope Cruz and Shirley Ballas, set to Frank Sinatra’s My Way. The 56-year-old said the decision to leave had been one of the toughest of her life. “The reason I’m going is because I could have stayed. I sometimes think the hardest thing is to change when it’s the last thing you want to do, but probably the best thing to do. It’s the best thing for the programme. I really do mean it.” She also paid tribute to the show’s “unshockable” listeners. “[They’re] remarkable. We’ve got men who listen, men who listen to be annoyed, we’ve got men who listen to learn about women and about women in their lives, and that’s brilliant. “Our female audience ranges in age from 19 to 103, we get emails from women in their 90s. We get such a cross-section of experience and point of view.” The show has been on the BBC since 1946. The former 5 live presenter Emma Barnett will take over from Garvey in the new year. Garvey dismissed reports that she was retiring, saying she was doing a new interview series for Radio 4 in the spring, and said her podcast with Fi Glover would also be broadcast on the station. She added: “I will now for ever be known as a former presenter of Woman’s Hour, and that is absolutely fine.”