Outside Broadcaster

Eric Robson is probably best known as the chairman of one of the longest running broadcast programmes in the world - Gardeners' Question Time on Radio 4. But for more than 35 years he's been one of the instantly recognisable voices of British broadcasting. He's been the commentator on the great events of State - Remembrance Sunday, Trooping the Colour. His documentaries range from Great Railway Journeys of the World to the classic BBC series with the fellwalker Alfred Wainwright. His long running ITV programme, Out of Town, is cult viewing in the north of England. In this blunt, humorous and indiscreet memoir Eric Robson bites the hand that feeds him in a canter through the stupidities of broadcasting which he still can't bring himself to think of as a proper job. When asked to describe what he does he's been known to say that he's the electronic equivalent of a jobbing plumber. Of course plumbers only need to know two things - water runs downhill and payday is Friday. Broadcasters only have to pretend they know what they're talking about.