Frank Gardner, OBE, British journalist and correspondent

Frank Gardner is the UK’s first full-time Security Correspondent, reporting and analysing for BBC TV, radio and online on issues of both domestic and international security. He is a fluent Arabist with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Exeter University, and has lived and worked in several Middle Eastern countries. He spent nine years as an investment banker in New York, London and Bahrain before switching to journalism in 1995 and later becoming the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent based in Cairo. Frank has reported extensively on terrorism and security from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantanamo Bay and the Horn of Africa.

In 2004 he was shot six times in an opportunistic attack by al-Qaeda gunmen while filming in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His cameraman was killed but Frank survived with major injuries, returning to his BBC job after 14 operations. In 2005 he was awarded the OBE by HM The Queen for services to journalism.

FITA:  I went to Bedales School in Hampshire and was a boarder, a stark contrast for the the boy who had once boarded with, and was one of, India’s poorest children. How were your school days at Marlborough?

FRANK: – They were great thanks. Big, open-air country school with lots of opportunity to explore the Wiltshire countryside on bicycle. I particularly enjoyed drama, rifle shooting and cross country running.

FITA: Do you recall when you fell in love with Arabia?

FRANK:- Probably before I even got there, when I first read Wilfred Thesiger’s epic book ‘Arabian Sands’ as a Continue reading ‘Questions in the Air: With BBC Journalist Frank Gardner’