Fiona Armstrong

Last updated

Fiona Armstrong,
Lady MacGregor
Born (1956-11-28) 28 November 1956 (age 67)
Preston, England
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s) Journalist, newsreader, Lord Lieutenant
Notable credit(s) BBC News, GMTV, ITV Border, ITN
Spouses
Rodney Potts
​
(m. 1988⁠–⁠2002)​
​
​
(m. 2005)​
Children1

Fiona Armstrong, Lady MacGregor (born 28 November 1956), is a British television journalist and is Lord Lieutenant of Dumfries. She is also the author of several books and has written for newspapers and made television programmes on Scottish topics including fishing and Scottish clans.

Contents

Early life

Armstrong was born in Preston, Lancashire. As a child she lived for ten years in Nigeria, where her father was in the colonial service. She became Lady MacGregor of MacGregor when she married clan chief Sir Malcolm Gregor Charles MacGregor, 7th Baronet (born 1959) in 2005. She has a daughter, Natasha (born 1992), from her first marriage to Rodney Potts. [1]

She studied German Literature at University College, London; at university, she edited the London Student newspaper. [2]

Career

She started her career in local radio, before joining the BBC news team in Manchester in 1983. She then moved to Border Television as a news reporter, before becoming a regular newsreader and presenter for the nightly regional news programme Lookaround . In March 1987, she switched to ITN as a reporter/newscaster on News at Ten , News at 5:45 (later News at 5:40) and other bulletins. On the reporting side, she covered the Lockerbie air disaster and produced a series on AIDS orphans in Africa. In 1993, she was one of the launch team on the ITV breakfast station GMTV, but left after only a few months.

She presented the breakfast news programme on BBC World, before rejoining ITV Border as a presenter of Lookaround, as well as a presenter and producer on a number of regional programmes for the station, including "Eagle's Eye" and Fiona on Fishing. She has fronted antiques, political, cooking and lifestyle programmes for the ITV regions. As one of the UK's best known female anglers, she has written two fishing books and made fishing films for Sky TV's 'Tight Lines' programme. Her series, River Journeys, was shown on the Discovery Channel.

In February 2009, ITV Tyne Tees & Border was launched, replacing ITV Tyne Tees and ITV Border. Armstrong was announced as Features Correspondent for the service on a freelance basis. [3] [4] Her work took her to Cambodia to report on the work of land mine charities and to West Africa to cover the work of the Mercy Ships. Armstrong returned to network television news on 15 February 2010 as a presenter for the BBC News Channel. [5] She went on to present Border Life , a current affairs programme for ITV Border. Whilst working as a journalist for the BBC News Channel, Armstrong interviewed the civil rights activist and writer, Darcus Howe, on the subject of the street disturbances in England in the summer of 2011. During the interview on 9 August 2011, studio-based Armstrong asserted: "You are not a stranger to riots yourself I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself." [6] Howe denied that he had ever taken part in riots and was clearly offended. The BBC later issued a qualified apology to Darcus Howe for Armstrong's accusation. [7]

Armstrong specialises in Scottish clan history. She has made more than 20 films on Scottish families, and in 2006, set up the first Border Reiver Trail in the south of Scotland. She is a columnist for magazines and newspapers, including Scottish Field magazine, the "Courier" newspaper, and the American-based Scotbanner newspaper.

She is on the board of the University of Central Lancashire as well as being a fellow there. She is Chairman of the Clan Armstrong Trust and a judge of Cumbria Book of the Year. She is also patron of the 'Bookmark' book festival and a deputy lieutenant of Dumfriesshire. She is currently writing a book on Queen Victoria and a family connection to Scotland. [8]

Her appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Dumfries was announced on 26 January 2016. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Smillie</span> Scottish television presenter

Carol Patricia Smillie is a Scottish former television presenter, actress and model. Smillie became famous as a presenter on British TV during the 1990s and early 2000s. She was best known for assisting Nicky Campbell on the UK version of the game show Wheel of Fortune between 1989 and 1994. Between 1996 and 2003, she was the main presenter on the BBC One home makeover show Changing Rooms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV Border</span> ITV region for Cumbria and South Scotland

ITV Border, previously Border Television and commonly referred to as simply Border, is the Channel 3 service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the England/Scotland border region, covering most of Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway, the Scottish Borders and parts of Northumberland. The TV service previously covered the Isle of Man from 26 March 1965 until 15 July 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sue Lawley</span> British broadcaster

Susan Lawley is a retired English television and radio broadcaster. Her main broadcasting background involved television news and current affairs. From 1988 to 2006, Lawley was the presenter of Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GMTV</span> Former UK breakfast television franchisee

GMTV, now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end. The final edition of GMTV was broadcast on 3 September 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darcus Howe</span> British broadcaster, writer and racial justice campaigner (1943–2017)

Leighton Rhett Radford "Darcus" Howe was a British broadcaster, writer and racial justice campaigner. Originally from Trinidad, Howe arrived in England as a teenager in 1961, intending to study law and settling in London. There he joined the British Black Panthers, a group named in sympathy with the US Black Panther Party.

<i>BBC Look North</i> (North East and Cumbria) BBC television news programme

BBC Look North is the BBC's regional television news service for North East England, Cumbria and parts of North Yorkshire. The service is produced and broadcast from the BBC Broadcasting Centre on Barrack Road in Newcastle upon Tyne with district newsrooms based in Carlisle, Durham, Middlesbrough and York.

<i>ITV News Tyne Tees</i> British regional television news programme

ITV News Tyne Tees is a British television news service produced by ITV Tyne Tees & Border and broadcasting to the Tyne Tees region.

Lindsey Archibald is a Scottish former television presenter for the defunct Daybreak, Setanta Sports and Rangers TV.

Penny Macmillan is a British journalist, who presented the news on Reporting Scotland for nearly ten years. In March 2007 she decided to take a career break from the BBC to spend more time with her young family. Penny was a familiar face at breakfast, weekends and at 22:25. In the year before her departure, she could also be found co-presenting the main programme at 18:30. Penny joined BBC Scotland in 1998 to present Newsline, a daily current affairs show on BBC Choice Scotland. Prior to that, Penny worked for Lookaround at Border Television in Carlisle.

Pamela “Pam” June Royle is a British television journalist and presenter.

Emma Baker is a British television journalist and presenter employed by ITV Anglia as Head of News.

Julie Marion MacDonald is a Scottish journalist and presenter, currently working freelance with Al Jazeera English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV Tyne Tees & Border</span>

ITV Tyne Tees & Border is the producer of regional programming for the ITV Tyne Tees and ITV Border franchises. Between 2009 and 2013, the two regions were merged into a single region. Since 2013, each region receives its own regional service, but both services use the same studios and presenters.

<i>Lookaround</i> British regional television news programme

ITV News Lookaround is a British television news service produced by ITV Tyne Tees & Border and broadcasting to the ITV Border region.

Helen Carnell is an English presenter and journalist employed by ITV Tyne Tees & Border.

Eric Wallace was a reporter and presenter for Border Television and an independent film director in Cumbria, England. He was born in Carlisle and spent his whole life there. For over twenty years, he was the main anchor of the regional news programme, Lookaround.

Representing Border is a regional television current affairs programme, produced by ITV Tyne Tees & Border, covering political issues from Holyrood, Westminster and local government, affecting Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders.

This is a timeline of the history of regional news on the British television network ITV.

References

  1. ↑ "TV FIONA'S AGONY; She splits from husband after 14-year marriage". Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Record. 2002. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  2. ↑ The Stage Thursday 17 April 1985, page 19
  3. ↑ Presenters Armstrong, Pearson and Backshall survive Border TV axe Archived 9 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine , News & Star, 13 January 2009
  4. ↑ Full Border TV Lookaround line-up revealed Archived 19 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine , News & Star, 17 January 2009
  5. ↑ "Julia Somerville to present on BBC News channel". BBC News. 23 December 2009. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
  6. ↑ Guiseppe Franko (9 August 2011). "Darcus Howe BBC News Interview on Riots". Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2016– via YouTube.
  7. ↑ "London riots: BBC apologises for accusing Darcus Howe" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  8. ↑ "Fiona Armstrong". UCLan. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
  9. ↑ "Lord-Lieutenant of Dumfries: Fiona Armstrong - Press releases - GOV.UK" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
Honorary titles
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of Dumfries
2016–present		Incumbent
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.