Eric Bell Robson (born 31 December 1946) is a television broadcaster, author and documentary film maker who has lived for most of his life in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, where he has a sheep farm. For many years he was the main presenter of ''Brass Tacks''.

Early life

Robson was born in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

and attended

Carlisle Grammar School Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its proxim ...

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

Career

Robson started at

Border Television ITV Border, previously Border Television and commonly referred to as simply Border, is the Channel 3 service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the England/Scotland border region, covering most of Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway, the ...

(based in

) in 1966. In the 1980s and 90s he was also a reporter on the BBC Scotland '' Landward'' show. He has been a sheep farmer since 1987. On 20 February 1994 he became the principal chairman of

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's '' Gardeners' Question Time'' programme, but announced on 20 March 2019 that he would be handing over his chair to Kathy Clugston, a BBC newsreader and continuity announcer, on 3 May 2019. Robson had earlier contributed to various regional TV series about

Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright Order of the British Empire, MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalking, fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume ''Pictorial ...

's walking guides. In 1980 he presented the final episode of the first series of '' Great Railway Journeys of the World'', produced by the BBC. In 2011, he was accused of a conflict of interest by anti-nuclear protesters opposed to a second generation of nuclear power plants and the possible siting of a high-level waste dump in the Lake District. Robson is the chairman of the Cumbria Tourism organisation, but at the same time is a part owner of Osprey Communications, a PR firm that is advisor to the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership. He is also a Deputy Lieutenant of Cumbria. Robson was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the

2021 New Year Honours The 2021 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to tourism as honorary president of Cumbria Tourism.

Personal life

He is chairman of the Wainwright Society and made a series of TV programmes with

in the mid-1980s that looked back over the reclusive writer's life. He lives in

Wasdale Wasdale (; traditionally ) is a valley and civil parish in the western part of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Irt flows through the valley to its estuary at Ravenglass. A large part of the main valley floor is ...

, where he farms at Crag House Farm and (with his wife) runs a mail order company named after Striding Edge, specialising in

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

s and

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

s about the countryside, particularly that of Cumbria. He married Mary Armstrong in 1976, but they divorced in 1984. They have a son and daughter. He married Annette Steinhilber in 1988. They have a son and two daughters, one grandson and three granddaughters.

Books

* Co-author, ''Great Railway Journeys of the World'' (BBC) * Editor, ''The Allotment Handbook'' (Arena Press) * Author, ''Outside Broadcaster'' (autobiography), 2007 (Frances Lincoln Ltd)

References

External links

BBC

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robson, Eric 1946 births British radio presenters British television presenters Deputy lieutenants of Cumbria 20th-century English farmers Living people Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Carlisle Grammar School People from Carlisle, Cumbria 21st-century English farmers