But this bliss was not to last. In a love triangle tale that grabbed tabloid headlines, Sandell left her for fellow Five Live host Victoria Derbyshire.
Initially Glover ploughed on with her work. By now manifestly a station golden girl, in , she was promoted to the mid-morning slot with a more heavy-hitting agenda than the reflective late-night show. But broadcast immediately after Derbyshire's own show, now edited by Sandell, the juxtaposition produced palpable tensions. After five months in the new job, she quit amid rife speculation that it was the difficulties of the working relationships that were the problem.
In the words of the Daily Mail: "Jilted radio star quits to escape love triangle. A dream job, but Fi finds work with her ex and his new love a nightmare.
Whatever the truth of the decision - which certainly seemed surprising given her career trajectory until then - it was greeted with woe by listeners who besieged the BBC message board. Matthew Norman, the broadcasting commentator, said it was an act of "gross negligence" by BBC management to let her go. But Glover was not going to stick around in tricky circumstances.
She had already written one well-received book, which had been published the year before. I'm an Oil Tanker - Travels with My Radio was a quirky travelogue through local radio stations worldwide. She moved to New York to write another, looking at the American radio industry and its shock-jock DJs.
Her ties with British broadcasting were not severed, however. In she seemed back for good, deemed an apt successor to Eddie Mair on Radio 4's Broadcasting House and still well imbued with her characteristic irreverence. When Mark Damazer, the station controller and her boss, requested more dissent on the airwaves, she responded with alacrity. But then she became pregnant by her new partner, Rick Jones, a marketing executive at the lottery firm Camelot, and took maternity leave.
Clearly delighted, Glover was asked whether the happy parents planned to marry. When she returns to work next month, it will be to the new show at 9am on Saturday, the slot many now associate with John Peel. Curiously, the idea had been mooted almost ever since the great DJ died in October , as it was known that Mark Damazer's wife was a Glover fan.
Radio 4 executives are keen to stress that whatever the new programme is - and the details are still closely under wraps - it will not be Home Truths with a new presenter. Critics of Broadcasting House's occasionally smug, self-reverential style - one Glover inherited rather than created - have hinted they would be unhappy were that to spill over to Saturday morning Radio 4.
But they should not worry. Glover, who admits to being a home-bird who loves cooking and the anonymity of radio over the fame of TV, should settle in nicely amid the clutter of the average Radio 4 household's start to the weekend. Glover, who has been with Radio 5 Live since , will leave the station in July, taking a sabbatical from the BBC to concentrate on writing in the US.
Her first book, I'm an Oil Tanker - Travels with My Radio, was published in and Glover has now been commissioned to pen a book about American radio. She will move to New York in September. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," she added. Bob Shennan, the station's controller, said: "Fi will be a big loss to Radio 5 Live - we will miss her intelligence, wit and engaging style.
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