Nicholas Andrew Argyll Campbell OBE, born Nicholas Lackey on April 10, 1961, is a distinguished Scottish broadcaster and journalist. Campbell's journey began in Portobello, Edinburgh, where he was adopted just days after his birth.
Nicholas Campbell at the Hay Festival 2019
Early Life and Radio Career
Campbell's biological parents were both Irish. His unmarried mother, Stella Lackey, an Irish Protestant matron from Longford, conceived him during a secretive affair and traveled to Edinburgh to give birth. He started his career at Northsound Radio in Aberdeen while still a university student, creating commercials and jingles. In 1983, he hosted "The World of Opera," a Sunday night show. He then took over the station's breakfast show until 1986.
He sent a tape to Capital Radio in London and was given the Saturday afternoon show. The Capital Radio roster at the time included Roger Scott, Kenny Everett, Alan Freeman, Chris Tarrant and David "Kid" Jensen. He first presented the late-night Saturday programme but was soon moved to the weekend early show. Towards the end of 1988 he was offered the weekday late night slot which was named Into the Night.
He played a wide variety of music and hosted an eclectic selection of guests for long interviews. These included Frank Zappa, David Icke, John Major, the Bee Gees and the Reverend Ian Paisley. He was also regularly joined by Frankie Howerd in the last years of the comedian's life. Campbell left the network briefly in October 1993 to care for his sick wife.
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In 1997, he joined BBC Radio 5 Live, presenting the mid-morning phone-in show for five years before taking over the breakfast slot in January 2003, initially with Victoria Derbyshire. From 2004 to 2011, he co-presented the programme with Shelagh Fogarty. In May 2011, Fogarty left the breakfast show and was replaced by Rachel Burden. Campbell started presenting a one hour at 9am phone-in Your Call after the main show.
In 2001, when Radio 2 wanted a replacement for Jimmy Young, he said that he was the BBC's choice and detailed a series of meetings between himself and the controller of Radio 2. However, the BBC later said that Campbell had initiated the meetings himself, and his public revelations about private negotiations was criticised by Director General Greg Dyke.
His radio career also includes notable work for Radio 2. In January 2019 Campbell presented Engelbert; 60 years of song, a musical retrospective and in-depth interview with Engelbert Humperdink. Following the success of that programme he interviewed Francis Rossi of Status Quo for another Radio 2 special - Here we Are and Here We Go which was broadcast in May 2019.
In his time at Radio 5 Live, Campbell has covered four Olympic Games, three Football World Cups and three European Championships and every general election and referendum since 1997. He has won many awards for his radio work. In 1999 he was voted Variety Club Radio Personality of the year.
In 2024 Campbell wrote and presented a three part series on BBC Radio 4 - How Boarding Schools shaped Britain.[15] the influence and lasting impact of Boarding Schools on Britain - the British ruling class and class system in particular.
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Transition to Television
Campbell's first mainstream television appearance was shortly after he joined Radio 1 in 1987, hosting a pop quiz on Grampian Television, "The Video Jukebox." In 1989, he presented "Travelling Talk Show" from Volgograd, Soviet Union, discussing reform under Mikhail Gorbachev.
When the British rights to the Wheel of Fortune were secured by Scottish Television, Campbell got the presenting job after piloting against Eamonn Holmes, and he hosted the show from 1988 to 1996. His co-presenters were first Angela Ekaette, then Carol Smillie, and for his final season, Jenny Powell. The programme, made prior to satellite broadcasting, aired on ITV reaching audiences of up to 12 million. In 1992, he anchored Goal on Sky TV. Also in 1993, Campbell hosted Strictly Classified for Granada Television.
Between 1990 and 2001, he presented Central Weekend (also called Central Weekend Live), the influential and controversial late-night debate show on Friday night in the Central Television region. Known for the confrontational nature of its studio audience and provocative topics, Campbell was the main presenter but over the years co-presenters on the debate show included Anna Soubry, Adrian Mills, Sue Jay, Claudia Winkleman, Kaye Adams, John Stapleton, Roger Cook, Paul Ross and Sheila Ferguson. During one debate, Campbell was attacked live on camera by an irate participant in a debate on women's football.
London's ITV franchise Carlton Television and also network ITV made versions of the programme, Carlton Live and Thursday Night Live, which were shown between 1996 and 2002. These were also hosted by Campbell.
In 2001, he took over as presenter/reporter on Watchdog, the long-running consumer affairs show. He remained there until 2009 when he and Julia Bradbury were replaced by Anne Robinson. In 2007, Campbell returned to the game show world for The Rest of Your Life on ITV, a show devised by Dick de Rijk who also created Deal or No Deal. It first aired on ITV in May 2007.
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Campbell featured in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? that aired 11 July 2007, where he was seen tracing his adoptive family's roots in Scotland and Australia. Campbell hosted The Big Questions, an ethical and religious debate show which ran on BBC One on Sunday morning for 14 series between 2007 and 2021.
2011 was when Long Lost Family came to British television, a show which he has presented with Davina McCall through 14 series. In The Times, Carole Midgley wrote of the show; "Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall have the knack of squeezing out enough emotion to make it a full box of Kleenex show, but stopping short of it being too schmaltzy. Stories this gobsmacking need no ramping up."[21] The programme has launched over 700 searches for missing relatives. It remains one of ITV's highest rating factual shows.[22] Campbell and McCall also present Long Lost Family - What Happened Next and Long Lost Family - Born without Trace which helps foundlings abandoned as babies. The team, led by Ariel Bruce, solve the mystery of their beginnings through DNA testing and detective work.[23]
In 2013, Long Lost Family won the Royal Television Society Award for best popular factual programme and in 2014, the BAFTA Award for best feature. In 2021, the programme won best Lifestyle Show in the TV Choice Awards.
In 2017, he made a documentary for the Women at War series for BBC One with his adoptive mother Sheila Campbell.[26] He found out more about his her role in World War II and her experiences as a radar operator on D-Day.[27] Also that year, he took part in All Star Musicals for ITV, performing Razzle Dazzle from the musical Chicago Live!
In 2019 and 2020, he presented both series of the BAFTA-nominated Operation Live for Channel 5. In 2021, Campbell presented Manhunt: The Raoul Moat Story on ITV1. This was the inside story of how Moat was tracked down, all in the glare of 24-hour rolling news.[29] In June 2023, Campbell's documentary made by Summer Film, Secrets of the Bay City Rollers, was released on ITV, STV and ITVX. In November 2023, Campbell presented the State Opening of Parliament for the BBC from the Palace of Westminster. In February 2024, Campbell participated in the fifth series of The Masked Singer UK as the character "Dippy Egg".
In 2013 he provided the voiceover for the controversial Mentorn documentary When Tommy met Mo.
Campbell's podcast One of Family won the Dog Desk Radio award in 2021 for Best Animal Related Podcast and frequently reached the number 1 spot in the Apple Podcasts Pets and Animal charts for Great Britain. In June 2022 the BBC launched his podcast Different for Radio 5 Live on BBC Sounds, in which he interviews people who have had unusual experiences, beliefs or careers.
Personal Revelations and Advocacy
In July 2022 Campbell interviewed journalist Alex Renton on Different, and Campbell revealed he had witnessed and experienced abuse at his school The Edinburgh Academy.[40] Campbell wrote an article for the Daily Mirror on the same day as the podcast's release.[41] The revelations made headlines all over the world[42] and increased pressure on the Scottish prosecution services to extradite one of the alleged abusers from South Africa, referred to as Edgar in the podcast and press because of a ruling on anonymity by the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. "Edgar" features heavily including Day 261 of the inquiry, in which he is referred to as "CDZ". After the podcast was released dozens more men came forward and the police opened an investigation solely relating to the Edinburgh Academy, Operation Tree Frog. In September 2022 Campbell and Renton were asked to appear on the South African current affairs programme Carte Blanche to talk about "Edgar", who was living in a comfortable retirement village near Cape Town.
Other notable podcast appearances by Campbell include James O'Brien's Full Disclosure. He appeared in Michael Fenton Stevens' podcast My Time Capsule in June 2021, on which talked about Charlie Brooker attacking him in the press and television over a number of years, including an expletive-laden monologue in 2009 which put him in bed for two days. "I've suffered from terrible depression since I can remember - probably since I was a teenager, and I have bipolar disorder type 2. It sent me into a really, really low ebb and I was suffering badly at the time, anyway. Of course I can take people having a go and having a bit of craic and insulting you - it goes with the game. But this was visceral.
In the 2023 British Podcast Awards his podcast Different won the award for best interview podcast.
Musical Pursuits and Writing
In 2014 Campbell co-wrote the album Just Passing Through with Kate Robbins, which was released in July of that year. In 2017 Campbell was asked to write the song "Sacred Eyes" for the 40th anniversary of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and a video about the famous elephant orphanage. On June 13th Campbell released his third studio album but his first solo effort, 'Through it All - 13 songs about love’. It was released on the Wiener World label. The album features the Remi Harris Hot Club Trio Tom Moore is on bass and Chris Nesbitt on rhythm guitar, and Xenia Porteous plays violin. Ten of the tracks are written by Campbell and there are three covers, two of which are duets with his daughter Kirsty Campbell Ritchie. The Times described the album as “a mixture of covers and sharply penned originals.
Campbell has written for a wide variety of journals and publications. He has authored two books. His first 'Blue-Eyed Son - The Story of an Adoption', came out in 2004. In this he described the search for both his birth parents and meeting his birth mother Stella Lackey in 1989 and birth father Eugene Hughes in 2002. His birth mother, a nurse from a Dublin Protestant family was 36 when she had the brief affair and Eugene Hughes, a Dublin policeman from a Catholic South Armagh family, was 21. Campbell also discovered that his grandfather had been in the IRA in 1919-1921, and his biological father had been active in the IRA of the 1950s.
When reports emerged prior to publication that his father was a committed Irish Republican, as his father had been before him, Stella's nephew and her elderly sister, by then very ill, were doorstepped by the English tabloid press. Stella's family had no idea who their aunt's brief and obviously secret lover in 1960 had been or anything about his religious or political background and were panicked into a denial.[60] When the book came out Campbell wrote about his birth father's background and all was explained in chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16 of Blue-Eyed Son. Both sides of his birth families helped with and contributed to the book. In the book, given his own birth parents' experience, Campbell explored in some detail the cultural and social taboos of inter-religious relationships in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Scotsman said it was "astonishingly honest . . . one man's set of raw, moving and resonant truths". His second book, the Sunday Times Bestseller, One of the Family - Why a Dog Called Maxwell Changed My Life, came out in 2021. In this he addressed his complex relationship with his birth mother and the guilt he carried towards his adoptive parents for needing to trace her. He described his emotional breakdown and late diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and how his beloved Labrador Maxwell's unconditional love had helped him. The Daily Express said it had "Commendable honesty . . . A lifelong dog lover, Campbell is a vocal advocate for animals, writing and campaigning for rights, welfare and conservation. After awakening to the desperate plight of the African elephant[64] he began campaigning with Will Travers of the Born Free Foundation and the writer and campaigner Dominic Dyer[65] to raise awareness of the issue and campaign to ban the ivory trade. Campbell is also an active supporter of Guide Dogs UK.
Campbell met his first wife Linda Larnach, a divorcee eight years his senior with two sons, whilst working at Northsound Radio in Aberdeen. They moved to North London where he would later nurse her through a health scare and encouraged his young stepsons in their footballing endeavours, hosting auctions to raise funds for their local amateur club. During their marriage he traced his birth mother Stella in 1989. A former presenter of Radio 1 Newsbeat, Ritchie is now a newsreader on BBC Radio 4. The couple live in Balham and have a home in Glenelg in the Scottish Highlands.[80][81] They have four daughters. In 2004, Campbell wrote Blue-Eyed Son - Story of an Adoption, his account of being adopted and tracing both his birth parents and his extended families in Ireland, on both sides of the religious divide. His birth mother Stella died in 2008 in Dublin.[82] Campbell was a coffin bearer and spoke at her Dublin funeral. In 2021 he wrote the Sunday Times Bestseller One of the Family - Why A Dog Called Maxwell Changed My Life. The book was dedicated to his adoptive mother Sheila. On 12 December 2019, Campbell announced via social media that she had died at the age of 96. My mum Sheila died yesterday at 96. We made a BBC programme together ab...
Nicky Campbell talks to First4Adoption about his own adoption experiences
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