Libby Purves

Elizabeth Mary Purves, OBE (born 2 February 1950) is a British radio presenter, journalist and author. Born in London, a diplomat's daughter, Purves was raised in her mother's Catholic faith and educated at convent schools in Israel, Thailand, South Africa and France, and at Beechwood Sacred Heart School, Royal Tunbridge Wells. Purves won a scholarship to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she was awarded a first-class degree in English. She was elected Librarian of the Oxford Union. In 1971, she joined the BBC as a studio manager. By the mid-1970s she was a regular presenter on BBC Radio Oxford where she could be frequently heard on the station's early morning shows. In 1976, she joined the BBC Radio 4's Today programme as a reporter and became the programme's first woman presenter, alongside Brian Redhead and John Timpson, two years later. In 1983 she was editor of Tatler magazine for six months. For her column in The Times newspaper, Purves was named columnist of the year in 1999 and in the same year was appointed an OBE for services to journalism. She has written books on childcare, twelve novels including Mother Country, a memoir of religious upbringing, Holy Smoke (1998), and a travel book, One Summer's Grace (1989), about a 1,700-mile sailing journey round Britain with children aged three and five.