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When I was approached to direct a documentary about Sir James Galway a thought occurred to me - I knew something of his achievements and reputation but nothing meaningful about him beyond the popular highlights of his career. Put simply, I didn’t feel I really knew who Sir James Galway was.

It鈥檚 impossible to exaggerate the draw he still has with his legion of fans across the world.

He has now been at the top of his profession for a cool 50 years.

Talking to others I came to learn that I was not alone in this. But I soon realised that combination of immediately recognising someone’s name yet having little knowledge of a person’s life and career provided excellent ingredients for a revealing and insightful documentary.

Together with my producer Tony Curry, we set about planning the film. How would we go about it? What would be the key elements? We soon decided on a three-stranded approach. The central narrative thread would be a chronological biography of Sir James’s meteoric rise from the back streets of North Belfast to the top of the classical music world.

The second strand needed to demonstrate his musical greatness in a contemporary sense so we decided to cover a number of upcoming concerts and to combine these with archival performances of his important career highlights.

The final thread of the film was to be something that audiences would be much less familiar with, but very interested to see, a glimpse into Sir James and his wife Lady Jeanne’s world as they relaxed in their fabulous home overlooking Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

I got quite excited when I checked out the James Galway tour schedule; Rio, Moscow, Chicago, New York. How nice I thought, I haven’t been to Brazil or Russia yet. However, as budgets and schedules soon dictated, we ended up filming concerts in Milan, Lucerne and London to capture his continuing mastery of the flute. In reality of course, these were much better stopping off points to chart Sir James’ glittering career, as he had studied for many years in London at the beginning of his young adulthood, and his major professional highlights were centred in Europe, the centuries old home of classical music.

While on the road with James, whom I got to know as Jimmy, I quickly realised his enduring appeal, which remains akin to that of a pop star. It’s impossible to exaggerate the draw he still has with his legion of fans across the world. Even after a gruelling two hour performance he still greets fans after each show where the queue can last for hours.

In the last year alone Jimmy performed 72 concerts in four continents. In the same period, One Direction only did 64 concerts and more than 50 years separates Jimmy from the average age of that young globe-trotting band.

Jimmy now spends a lot of his time between tours teaching the next generation of world class flute players. Here you see him at his most unmediated, stripped of celebrity trimmings and audience adoration. He is genuinely passionate about passing on his lifetime of experience and musical gifts to the next generation, which for him is the most important element of creating a lasting musical legacy.

Hanging out with Jimmy and his wife you get a glimpse of the lives of the rich and famous. When they play in London they stay in a friend’s majestic house on the same street where Margaret Thatcher used to lived, and where there’s probably little change out of £30 million to buy a house. When he gave a two-day masterclass for aspiring students after his concert in Milan, the location was a magnificent sprawling villa just 30 minutes outside the city. Villa Medici Giulini, set off the main road in sumptuous, well-manicured grounds, is a spectacular old style Italian mansion house setting which boasts one of the world’s most valuable piano collections (containing those once owned by Chopin and many other famous pianists and composers), a fine place to spend 48 hours.

None of these fine establishments, however, hold much of a candle to Sir James and Lady Jeanne’s own magnificent retreat in the pretty village of Meggen on the shores of Lake Lucerne. Their beautiful house has been the product of over 20 years’ love and attention to make it the perfect ‘time out’ oasis they need away from a life spent mainly on the road. Despite its peaceful setting, it is also a place of work, for it is from an elegantly furnished office in the basement of the large house where they self-manage their busy professional and personal lives with the help of trusted office manager Esther Burri.

Back on the road with Jimmy and you never know who you’ll bump into. When he appeared on the Andrew Marr show in May 2014, David Cameron was the principal guest. Before the show started the Prime Minister dropped into Jimmy’s dressing room to meet him. In characteristic style, Galway quipped that he couldn’t afford to live in the UK due to the tax rates.

On December 8th 2014, Jimmy Galway turned 75. He has now been at the top of his profession for a cool 50 years. One of the perks of my job is that you get to spend time with some remarkable people to share their stories with a national TV audience. That pleasure is often a privilege, because every once in a while you get to spend time in the presence of genius, and there’s no mistaking that in Sir James Galway’s case.

BEING JAMES GALWAY is perhaps the last major TV biography of Sir James to capture him while he remains at the height of his playing powers. In that sense, I hope it’s a fitting tribute to his ability and his achievements.

In the words of one of the film’s contributors, former television presenter Humphrey Burton, “Galway is a world musician. He will be remembered as one of the great musicians of the 2nd half of the 20th century”.

And I can tell my kids I hung out with him for a bit.