BBC Radio 4's Inside Money lets listeners explore the financial issues that matter to them.

Each week, presenter Lesley Curwen will offer her low-down on making the programme.

It was an ordinary black book with a hard cover, containing meticulous handwriting.

"This is my fifty-first book of notes that I've taken over the years," the softly-spoken man explained to our listener, Sandy Clarke.

The speaker was Anthony Bolton, one of Britain's star fund managers, from the giant financial group Fidelity.

We were lucky that he had agreed to disclose his investment methods to Sandy, a part-time occupational therapist who's hoping to invest her pension lump-sum.

Anthony Bolton told Sandy that he normally meets two companies a day, to decide whether to buy into their shares, or continue investing in them.

He warned Sandy she would need 'staying-power' to invest in shares

"They'll talk about the business," he said quietly, "and we'll cross examine them, and I keep notes."

Fidelity's Special Situations Fund, which he started running in 1979, has produced average returns of twenty per cent over the last 28 years.

A few years ago he was dubbed by the media "the Quiet Assassin" after he led a campaign to stop Michael Green becoming the chairman of the newly merged ITV group.

Although he is notoriously unassuming and reserved, he seemed happy to answer all Sandy's questions about his investment philosophy.

At one point, he produced a handy chart of the criteria he uses when assessing a company, entitled: How I Look at a Company.

I counted twenty-two different headings.

He explained how he tends to go against the herd, looking for "anomalies", his word for companies which he sees as mis-priced by the market.

We could be in for a more choppy period Anthony Bolton

He told Sandy about the thirty fund managers and seventy analysts in the Fidelity team, and how they feed into his decisions.

It was an understated but comprehensive explanation of the intellectual fire-power of big fund management firms.

But for all that, Anthony Bolton admitted to our listener "things come out of the blue that you don't expect, or you can get things wrong."

He warned Sandy she would need "staying-power" to invest in shares.

In fact, the day we recorded the interview in late July, was the day before the latest bout of stock market turbulence began.

He gave his personal opinion, that he was "somewhat cautious" about stock markets for the next six months or more, and that "we could be in for a more choppy period", even though there might be buying opportunities later.

It had been a breath-takingly rare opportunity for an Inside Money listener to find out how one of the country's most admired investors does his job.

BBC Radio 4's Inside Money: trade secrets was broadcast on Saturday 11 August at 1204 BST and repeated on Monday 13 August at 1502 BST.

Lesley's Low-downs from other programmes this series