Sue MacGregor
 Sue MacGregor    | |
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| Born | Susan Katriona MacGregor 30 August 1941 Oxford |
Sue MacGregor (born 30 August 1941) is a BBC Radio 4 broadcaster, perhaps best known as a former presenter of Woman's Hour (1972-87) and the Today programme, (1984 to 2002) who now hosts The Reunion on BBC Radio 4.[1]
Early life
Her parents were Scottish[2] and emigrated to South Africa where she was brought up. Her father was a doctor, a neurologist, who, during the Second World War was in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the British 14th Army in Burma.[3] She attended the Herschel Girls School, an independent boarding school in Cape Town. She completed her education at the École de Commerce in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and at an English college called the House of Citizenship.
Career in broadcasting
For a time in London, she worked as a typist at Australia House, then became a temporary junior secretary at the BBC. This entitled her to an induction course, where she was taught the BBC's method of working.
Returning to South Africa she began her broadcasting career there on the SABC's English-language radio service. Initially joining the BBC in 1967 as a reporter for The World At One, she went on to host Woman's Hour from 1972 until 1987. In 1984 she became one of the hosts of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, a position she held until 2002.[4]
That same year she was appointed a CBE for her services to broadcasting.[5] Sue is a trustee of UNICEF and was a trustee of the John Ellerman Foundation. She is also on the Chancellor's Forum for the London Institute and an honorary graduate of several universities, among them the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent and Dundee University.
In late 2010, she recorded her final episode as chair of the popular book programme A Good Read, also on BBC Radio 4.[6] After seven years and approximately 500 book reviews, she is the show's longest serving presenter.
Personal life
A friend of Helen Suzman, via her niece Janet, MacGregor used her local knowledge in BBC broadcasts over many years about the struggle against South Africa's apartheid system.
Her autobiography, Woman of Today, published in 2002, contained candid revelations and outlined her claimed relationships, including an alleged affair with Leonard Rossiter.[7]
Motherhood
In her August 2014 acticle in The Telegraph, Sue MacGregor said she doesn't have children and explained that a life outside of motherhood has its own joys:
- Like all doting aunts and great-aunts, I know I’m spectacularly lucky with my sister’s daughters and my great-nieces and nephews. But I am well aware that enjoying children at one remove, and not having experienced the 24/7 commitment of caring for babies and the hardly less demanding task of keeping them safe and happy as they grow up, can come across as both slightly pathetic and supremely selfish.
- I do admire and even envy the women I know who’ve achieved brilliant careers while bringing up a family. I think of two colleagues in particular – Sarah Montague and Mishal Husain on the Today programme – who have successfully combined being mothers of young children with having to get up to go to work at half past three in the morning. Believe me, getting up that early and sounding coherent by six in the morning is not easy.
- I think also of my nieces, both GPs, who work long hours and juggle with school timetables, homework issues and feeding the family. I think of the millions of women who leave for work early and get home late who are also brilliant mothers. I know I simply couldn’t do both. But please don’t feel sorry for me.
- I’ve worked on some of the best programmes on radio, I’ve met some pretty extraordinary people – heroes and villains some of them – and I’ve learnt a great deal about the lives of others and the ways of the world. I’ve also had the chance to work with one of the world’s best children’s charities, Unicef. With children of my own, perhaps that wouldn’t have happened.[8]
References
- ↑ "BBC - Radio 4 - Presenter - Sue MacGregor". Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. Retrieved 2013-07-20. Cite uses deprecated parameter
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