The big interview
BBC News presenter Reeta Chakrabarti talks to Nathalie Whittle about revamping her career in midlife, reporting from the war in Ukraine and the joy of cooking with her family
From politics to royal events, Reeta Chakrabarti has spent the past three decades bringing us stories from across the globe. She has anchored the BBC’s coverage of the 70th anniversary of the partition of India, presented live from the Platinum Jubilee celebrations and reported from war-torn Ukraine – delivering the headlines with equal parts heart and aplomb.
At the GH cover shoot, Reeta, 58, remains the epitome of professionalism, but we’re also introduced to her fun-loving side. She laughs at memories of her three grown-up children telling her: ‘You have your BBC voice on, Mum,’ confesses her love of clothes (‘I have far too many and yet I’m always looking for more’) and reminisces on her ‘carefree’ days at Oxford University, where she was known as the ‘disco queen’.
Here, Reeta, who lives in London with her husband, Paul Hamilton, a professor of English at Queen Mary University of London, shares how she balances it all…
The big interview
You’ve been at the BBC for more than three decades, how does that feel?
It’s quite astonishing, actually! I’ve had lots of different reinventions in that time. I started off as a radio producer, then I became a reporter and, after that, a correspondent. I didn’t start presenting until I was 49, which might have ordinarily been a stage when I thought being a correspondent was it. But instead, I was given this new opportunity in my 50s and I found it very invigorating. It’s been a sort of turning point in my career.
Did you imagine you’d be where you are today?
I didn’t, though I might have wished it. My father was a surgeon and he was very keen for me to be a doctor. Then, when I was 13, he took me along to see an operation and I fainted. It was in that moment I realised I wasn’t remotely cut out for it! I think he was quite disappointed…
Did you ever question whether you’d make it as a broadcaster?
Oh, there were moments of self-doubt for sure. I’m not necessarily a hugely confident person, but what I have been is a hard worker, and if I’m asked to do something, I say yes. Inside, I might be quaking with fear, but I’ll say, ‘Oh yes, lovely, I will.’ I think you have to jump in and be bold, even if you’re terrified. It’s very easy to look at me now, though, and think, ‘she’s so successful,’ but there have been some real lows along the way, too.
Like what?
When I started having children, partic
