Justin Webb, 62, is one of the most recognisable voices on BBC Radio as a regular presenter on the Today programme on Radio Four. Growing up in Bath, he began his radio career as a cub reporter in Belfast for the BBC in 1984 before returning to London to become presenter of BBC's Breakfast News and serving as the BBC’s North America Editor in Washington DC. He now lives in Camberwell, South London, with his wife Sarah and they have three children together.
MY EARLIEST MEMORY IS BEING TOLD WHO MY FATHER WAS. Mum and I were watching children’s TV when the news came on presented by the 1970s newsreader Peter Woods. “That’s your father,” she said. Then she left the room to make tea. We never spoke about him again and I never met him. I never questioned it and I still don’t. There was a slight tinge of regret when I was working on my memoir, and I had to write the words, "We never met", but really I’m so glad we didn’t meet. It wouldn’t have been good for him or his family.
I WAS A SOLITARY CHILD—I spent hours in my childhood home in Bath listening to the radio that I was given for my 11th birthday. It opened up the world and gave me an insight into the news of the 1970s as I grew up during that decade: strikes and IRA bombs and the Cold War. I loved it. I wanted to be part of the world.
MY HAPPIEST MEMORIES ARE OF COACH TRIPS WHEN I WAS YOUNG. We would go on day trips from Bath, and Mum and I would escape from an unhappy home for a day by the sea or in London, or just travelling along. I wanted more than anything to be a coach driver.
I WENT TO A QUAKER BOARDING SCHOOL IN SOMERSET where we grew our hair and smoked cannabis and failed exams. I feel lucky to have escaped in the end and scraped into university. I travelled around Europe as a student and was almost killed in a coach accident in Yugoslavia. One poor chap was crushed to death when we came off the road. I carried on by train. In the photographs I look confident but I think the shock was profound.
LIFE WAS TOUGHER IN THE 1970S but also, for children, simpler. I remember when I needed some money to buy my first LP (it was by the Scottish singer Frankie Miller), I worked for an afternoon picking potatoes in a local field. At the end of the day I think I got a few quid and took it straight to the record shop. And then got the bus home with the record in a bag. Very satisfying!
BEFORE I WENT TO UNIVERSITY I MADE A TRIP TO NEW YORK—which in the 1970s was properly grungy and dangerous. There were bus tours to go and see the worst parts of the city in which tourists wer
