Eric Robson was to appear at the Hay Festical this year (2007) in order to promote his latest book, Outside Broadcaster, An Autobiography.  Sadly, due to unforeseen family reasons he could not appear.  However, I purchased the book whilst there and started reading it and was soon chuckling to myself over some of the content.  Eric is most famous for his chairmanship of Gardener's Question Time on Radio 4, but to many accessing this site, he is more memorable in the walking programmes where he tried to extricate information from the overly shy Alfred Wainwright.
The book is a very easy read and, although chapter sixteen discusses AW, the rest follows Eric from his childhood in Southern Scotland to various anecdotes surrounding his freelance work as a broadcaster, usually outdoors.  To me, you don't learn much about the man himself (although you learn he hates flying), but the book is a pleasant wander through Eric's work starting as a young man in theatre all the way up to his modern day criticisms of the amount of drivvle pumped out by modern day broadcasting corporations.  I can recommend this book not only as an entertaining drive along the highway of broadcasting but also to learn more about the man who not only dresses the airways with his familiar tone but also Chairs the Wainwright Society to which many of us belong.

"BAA" rating:  [3 / 5]

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