Great Lives

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Matthew Parris

Ruth Holdaway

John Caunt

Clare Balding

James Pearce

Deb Crook

Toby Field

Great Lives: Ruth Holdaway on Helen Rollason

Ruth Holdaway on Helen Rollason

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Ruth Holdaway on Helen Rollason

Ruth Holdaway picks the sports broadcaster Helen Rollason as her great life.

Ruth Holdaway, Chief Executive of Women in Sport, chooses sports broadcaster Helen Rollason. With Matthew Parris. From 2016.

Ruth Holdaway - the former Chief Executive of Women in Sport - picks pioneering sports broadcaster Helen Rollason. 

Helen trained as a teacher, but after stints in community and local radio moved to the BBC to report for and later present the BBC’s 'Newsround' for children. 

She kept her hand in with sport and made history in 1990 when she was appointed as the first female presenter of BBC TV’s flagship 'Grandstand'. Sport was largely a male-dominated world at the time and there were plenty both inside and outside the Corporation who would have happily have seen her fail.

Presented by Matthew Parris, with John Caunt who helped Helen write her autobiography.

Plus contributions from Clare Balding, James Pearce and Deb Crook.

Producer: Toby Field

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

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