Robin Day

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Sir Robin Day, OBE (24 October 1923 – 6 August 2000) was a British political broadcaster and commentator of note.

On television, he presented Panorama and chaired Question Time (1979–89), and on radio was presenter of The World at One. His incisive and sometimes - by the standards of the day - abrasive interviewing style, together with his heavy-rimmed spectacles and trademark bow tie, made him an instantly recognisable and frequently impersonated figure over five decades.

Born in Hampstead, London, the son of a telephone engineer who became telephone manager at Gloucester, Robin Day briefly attended The Crypt School, Gloucester. Later he was sent to Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight.

After war service with the army in East Africa, where he reached the rank of captain before being demoted to lieutenant as part of a cull of rear-echelon jobs, Day received his university education at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and, while a student, was elected president of the Oxford Union debating society. Day also took part in the ESU USA Tour, the debating tour of the United States run by the English-Speaking Union.

He was called to the Bar in 1952, but practised only briefly. In his memoirs he recorded that he secured the acquittal of a lorry-driver accused of indecent exposure by persuading the magistrates that the man had been "shaking the drops from his person" after urinating, and by getting the man's young wife to testify, wearing a tight sweater, that she and her husband enjoyed a healthy love life.

Day spent almost his entire career in journalism. He rose to prominence on the new Independent Television News (ITN) from 1955, when he was the first British journalist to interview President Nasser of Egypt after Britain's defeat in the Suez Crisis.

In the 1959 General Election he stood as a Liberal Party candidate for Hereford but failed to win.

He became known in British broadcasting as "the Grand Inquisitor" for his abrasive interviewing politicians, a style out of keeping with the British media's culture of deference to authority that prevailed during the early days of his career. In 1981, he was knighted for his services to broadcasting.

In October 1982, during an interview with the Conservative Secretary of State for Defence John Nott, pursuing cuts in defence expenditure, he posed the question: "But why should the public, on this issue, as regards the future of the Royal Navy, believe you, a transient, here-today and, if I may say so, gone-tomorrow politician, [a reference to Nott's announcement that he was to stand down at the next General Election] rather than a senior officer of many years?" Nott rose, removed his microphone, and said "I'm sorry, I'm fed up with this interview. Really, it's ridiculous" and walked off the set. Nott's autobiography in 2003 was called Here Today Gone Tomorrow: Recollections of an Errant Politician.

Monty Python's Flying Circus often used Day as a reference, including the "Eddie Baby" sketch in which John Cleese turns to the camera and states "Robin Day's got a hedgehog named Frank." In another sketch, Eric Idle said he was able to return his "Robin Day tie" to Harrod's. He was also spoofed (as Robin Yad) on The Goodies' episode "Saturday Night Grease".

Day had problems relating to women. The broadcaster Joan Bakewell recalled that while he was professional while in the office,

Socially he was a menace. There was no subtlety in his manner: at office parties he would attack head on. "Do the men you interview fancy you? Do they stare at your legs? Do they stare at your breasts? Do you sleep with many of them?" ... Whenever he loomed in sight, I made myself scarce.^[1]

Later, Anna Ford pushed Day into a bush as a result of his unwanted advances.

Robin Day published two autobiographies; Day by Day in 1975 and Grand Inquisitor in 1989.

[edit] Reference

[edit] External links

• Sir Robin Day: 1923–2000 from the BBC
• Tributes to Sir Robin Day from the BBC

Preceded by programme started

Regular Host of Question Time 1979-1989

Succeeded by Peter Sissons