THE most dramatic moment of the week so far came on Monday morning during my news conference... when a spider gatecrashed our meeting.

As our content editor was reading out his newslist, I was amused to see a large arachnid dancing on the ceiling directly above the head of deputy editor Victoria MacFarlaine.

“Hey look Vikki, you have a friend above you,” I quipped, thinking it would cause a few titters and that we’d move on.

Not so. Vikki looked up, squealed in fright and fled her chair.

Sports editor Dave Peters gamely offered to remove the intruder, but I was having none of it.

The Star’s editor’s office does not discriminate against any person or creature, and if the spider wanted to get up to date with local news by eavesdropping in on my conference, then who was I to stop him?

Content Editor Neil Phillips, the calmest man in Bucks, defused the situation by swapping seats with Vikki and carrying on reading out his story ideas while Boris hovered menacingly above his head.

The only good thing to come out of this was that suddenly my office became interesting, and a succession of staff wandered through during the morning to view the creature.

However, before I plunged into a non-PC bout of teasing Vikki over her fears, I luckily discovered she had form for this.

She is one of probably millions of people around the world who have arachnophobia, a very real, but abnormal fear of spiders.

According to estimates I found on the internet, 50 per cent of women and ten per cent of men experience varying levels of terror when confronted with a spider.

There are techniques to cope with this and, several years ago, our Vikki actually had hypnotherapy treatment to try to deal with this.

“The hypnotherapist made me think back to my childhood to discover if I had been in contact with spiders, and explained to me why spiders were good for the planet and would not harm us,” she said.

Many phobias relate to a particularly bad experience in childhood. Vikki couldn’t pinpoint one specific instance although she recalls being terrified from a very young age.

The hypnotherapy, which she underwent as part of a magazine feature, did have its benefits.

“When I was younger, I used to scream really loudly when I saw a spider, however small,” she added. “I was so hysterical that my neighbour used to think I was being attacked. But now I’m alright and calm with small spiders; it’s just the large ones that scare me.”

I must admit I’m not totally comfortable with spiders, myself, but at home I have a special box, with a sliding compartment controlled by a long rod, in which I use to trap them before setting them free outside.

Later, I asked Dave Peters, who had gallantly offered to evict our intruder, if he intended to kill it. Dave was horrified at the suggestion, especially since his wife is a vegetarian. He normally gently removes the creatures in his cupped hands.

In fact, no one I know in Bucks would dream of killing a spider. It leaves me to reflect that if mankind was as humane to humans as it generally is to creepy crawlies, then we would finally have peace on earth.