Journalist Louise Minchin shares her passion for adventure as she celebrates kindred spirits across the globe
WORDS: SARAH TULLOCH PHOTOS: CAMERA PRESS/ MARK HARRISON, GETTY, REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
TALES TO TELL
Louise Minchin has always been a woman who has chosen to walk the road less travelled. Easy routes – whether as a journalist, presenter or mother-of-two – are not an option for the 55-year-old.
“I’m absolutely passionate about adventure and being intrepid, courageous, brave,” explains Louise, who spent 20 years on BBC Breakfast before taking her leave in 2021.
“I get so much from doing challenges that I then bring to other parts of my life. I’m much more resilient when the going gets tough.” And in a long and varied TV and radio career, she has had to be extraordinarily resilient.
In the early noughties, while working on Radio 5 Live, BBC bosses told Louise to “find another job” when she asked if she could reduce her work hours to spend more time at home after giving birth to her first daughter Mia.
“That was a long time ago now – my daughter is now 22 – and I hope and have been assured by the BBC that things have changed. But, at the time, it was really hard because I was working in the evening,” she tells OK!. “I was working from 4pm till midnight with a six-month-old, and I asked if I could reduce my hours or do one day a week less, but was told that wasn’t going to be possible.”
She refused to accept such treatment and called their bluff, leaving the role for pastures new. “A lot has changed, so I can’t speak for people’s experiences now, but I have been assured that that would not be the case any more.”
Louise has also been vocal on breaking the stigma around the menopause which, until recently, was endemic in many workplaces. The journalist, who is also mum to 19-year-old Scarlett, blazed a trail for female colleagues having been one of the first to have an “awkward” conversation with her BBC Breakfast boss about her menopause symptoms.
“At that point, before Davina [McCall] had done her documentary, nobody ever talked about menopause, and it had really impacted me in the workplace because, specifically in the studio, I was too hot,” reveals Louise.
“I eventually had to go to my boss and say, ‘Look, I’m not being a diva. I’m going through menopause and I get very, very hot and I just really need the heat to be turned down.’ Dan [Walker] was wearing a su
