John Humphrys (MP)

Desmond John Humphrys (born 17 August 1943) is a Welsh broadcaster. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter for the '' Nine O'Clock News'', the flagship BBC News television programme, and from 1987 until 2019 he presented on the BBC Radio 4 breakfast programme ''Today''. He was the host of the BBC Two television quiz show ''Mastermind'' from 2003 to 2021, for a total of 735 episodes. Humphrys now presents a regular Sunday afternoon show on Classic FM, where he also sometimes fills in on the weekday 'More Music Breakfast' show.

Humphrys has a reputation as an outspoken and challenging interviewer; occasionally politicians have been critical of his style after being subjected to a tough interview on live radio.

Early life and career

Humphrys was born in a working class environment in Cardiff at 193 Pearl Street, Adamsdown, son of Winifred Mary (Matthews), a hairdresser, and Edward George Humphrys, a self-employed Conservative voting French polisher. He was one of five children. During early life Humphrys had a bout of whooping cough and, concerned that he would be known as 'Dismal Desmond', his mother opted to use the name John. His parents encouraged him to do his homework and he passed the eleven plus exam. He became a pupil at Cardiff High School (then a grammar school), but he did not fit into the middle class environment there. He was an average pupil and left school at 15, choosing not to go to university and instead became a reporter with the '' Penarth Times'', a weekly newspaper that focused on local news in the town of Penarth, a seaside resort south of Cardiff.

Humphrys later joined the '' Western Mail'', a larger regional newspaper based in Cardiff. He joined Television Wales and the West (TWW), a commercial television channel based in Wales, and was the first reporter on the scene of the Aberfan disaster, which killed 144 people and destroyed entire parts of a town, in October 1966.

Career at the BBC

Humphrys joined the BBC later in 1966 as the district reporter for Liverpool and the Northwest, where he reported on the dock strikes of that time, sometimes for the national news. He then worked as a foreign correspondent, initially having to go abroad and leave his family for six to nine-month periods at a time when his children were still young and growing up. Later he took his family with him to the United States and South Africa where he was sent to open a news bureau. He reported the resignation of president Richard Nixon in 1974 on television by satellite from the United States, the execution of Gary Gilmore in 1977, and later, when based in South Africa, he reported on the end of Rhodesia and the creation of the new nation of Zimbabwe. Humphrys became disillusioned with living in hotels and life on-the-road as a foreign correspondent, and returned to London in 1980 to take up the post of BBC
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