‘It was about having self-belief’

In an exclusive article for aspire, Mary-Ann Sieghart interviews Nick Robinson about his childhood, education and just what it was that so successfully shaped his career.

There’s a reassuringly Everyman quality to the balding, bespectacled Political Editor of the BBC, Nick Robinson. His voice still has a tinge of his Manchester roots. He exudes calm and common sense. He is clearly erudite but there’s never a hint of condescension in his explanations of the intricacies of Westminster politics.  If, as rumoured, he stands down after the general election next year, we’ll all miss his wise musings on the big news bulletins.

So what’s his story? Who inspired him along the way? And did he always want to be a broadcaster?

Robinson went to a school that started life as the Manchester Warehousemen and Clerks’ Orphan School, set up in the Victorian era to educate children whose fathers had died. By the time he joined, at the age of eight, it had been renamed Cheadle Hume School and had direct grant status – meaning that half its pupils paid fees and the other half, selected on academic merit, were educated for free. Robinson stayed there for another ten years.

‘It was very socially mixed, and I liked that,’ he recalls. ‘I had the chance later to move to an independent school, but I stayed because I liked the mix – and the girls!’ Cheadle Hume also had a relaxed, rounded feel to it. Robinson enjoyed drama, and played a Communist commissar in a play called ‘The Queen and the Rebels’; captained the school lacrosse team, where he was coached by a former England goalie; and did a lot of debating, led by his favourite (physics) teacher, Peter Bullock. ‘That’s probably the reason I’m in this job now,’ he reckons.

He excelled academically, helped by parents with high expectations for him. Sometimes too high: ‘When I got all As in one set of O levels, my mother’s first response was, “That doesn’t mean you’ll get As in all your A levels.” That was the first thing she said!’ He did, mind you – four of them, in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and General Studies.

You might have expected him to go into a scientific career after that. But Robinson had sat a career aptitude test as a teenager. ‘I went in thinking I wanted to be a lawyer, a journalist or a doctor and the test said I should be a lawyer, a journalist or a doctor. So I did science A levels just to keep more options open.’

He had always had a sneaking ambition to go into broadcasting since he met his best friend’s father at the age of eight. This was Brian Redhead, a longstanding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘From a really young age, I knew this was what I wanted to do. It didn’t seem such a wild idea because I knew him. If you don’t know anyone like that, you’re less likely to think, “These things will be open to me.”’

Then, at a school careers fair, parents came in to talk about their jobs. There was a producer there from the BBC, so Robinson made a beeline for him. ‘He said go to Oxford, get a First and get a Blue [represent Oxford in a sports team] and then if you’re lucky they might interview you. I only managed the first of those three.’

He won a place at Oxford, but had a serious car crash and was forced to take a year off before going. He was in and out of hospital, so unable to travel. Instead he wrote to Piccadilly Radio, the local station, and asked for a week’s work experience. It led to eight months’ proper work, with lots of on-air reporting.

‘There was bags of luck and quite a lot of chutzpah, but I didn’t use any connections. The connection with Brian Redhead gave me the inspiration, but he had nothing to do with my further career. It was about having the self-belief that said I could write to someone and say, “Can I pop in and see you?”’

His advice to aspiring broadcasters now is not to write to on-air people like him, who are inundated with requests, but to find out who produces a favourite programme and contact him or her instead. ‘They’re much more likely to have the time and be flattered by the attention. You’ll get a better strike rate.’

And what now for Robinson? Well, many are tipping him, after the election, as the next new presenter of the Today programme. It would be a peculiarly fitting end to an ambition that began when he was just an eight-year-old boy in Manchester talking to his best friend’s Dad.

Nick Robinson is a journalist and the current BBC Political Editor. He studied for a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at University College, Oxford. Nick has had a varied and successful career in journalism since joining the BBC in 1986 as a Production Trainee.

Mary Ann spent 19 years as an Assistant Editor and columnist on The Times before leaving to pursue other interests. She is currently the chair of the Social Market Foundation and sits on the Council of Tate Modern.