A BBC radio and television reporter for 40 years, my husband, Michael Robinson, who has died aged 76, will be familiar to listeners of Radio 4’s Moneybox and File on 4, and to viewers of The Money Programme and Panorama. He specialised in business and financial journalism, always trying – and usually succeeding – in making accessible the convoluted and arcane machinations of the business world.
Michael was born in Cape Town, South Africa. His father, Derek Robinson, was in advertising, his mother, Blatch (nee Alice Blatchford), a graphic artist. At the age of 17 Michael woke up to apartheid and decided to leave the country. Fortuitously his parents came to the same conclusion and the family emigrated to London. Michael then went to York University to study music. It was there that he and I met: we lived together for the next 55 years, and were married in 2000.
At York Michael joined an avant-garde group playing electronic music, Gentle Fire. They performed their own works and the music of others including Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage – in France, Germany and at the Shiraz arts festival in Iran. In 1971 they appeared at the first Glastonbury festival, playing as dawn broke below the Pyramid Stage.
In 1975 the group broke up. Michael spent a few years working as a picture framer (he always enjoyed making things) before finally coming to realise that journalism was his real passion.
He was given his first break by the Money Programme, and his career shuttled between radio and television. He used his South African citizenship to get access to the country, making some brave programmes charting the last years of apartheid – until the government there took his citizenship away. In 1993-94, a three-part BBC Two series, The Giant Awakes, broke new ground in examining the explosive economic growth of China. During his career Michael’s work took him to 38 countries.
Ultimately he concentrated on domestic stories (including an early warning about Thames Water’s financial troubles). The recipient of many awards for his reporting, he enjoyed his proudest moment in 2019, when given the Harold Wincott lifetime achievement award, from the foundation set up to support economic, financial and business journalism – only the third person to receive it in 50 years, and the first broadcaster to do so.
Michael loved walking in the Peak District and looking for cowrie shells in Orkney, and enjoyed spending time with his many friends.
He is survived by me and his brother, Toby.
