Getting Dressed
The boldest link
Anne Robinson likes a colourful, kookie look on Countdown brigid keenan
ADRIAN BROOKS
Afternoons have just got a whole lot livelier. Anne Robinson has become the first female host on Countdown, the game show beloved by afternoon TV viewers. Robinson and I were at school together 65 years ago. Her family were Irish Catholics in Liverpool. From a list of convent schools they had selected for her, she chose Farnborough Hill because she liked its uniform blazer. (I hated the blazer.) After school, our lives went in different directions – until we met for this interview and found ourselves giggling about one of the Irish nuns who used tell Robinson she was ‘a BOLD girl who would make NOTHING of her life’. She didn’t stay for A levels (very few girls did in those days; I didn’t, either) but you could say Robinson has done well. She puts that down to having been made to read out loud to the school during silent retreats (the nuns’ way of keeping her quiet). ‘Nothing like having to stand on a chair with your knickers showing, reciting from the holy book, to overcome your fears.’ At 76, Robinson is five years younger than me. I wondered if she would have been scared to call me the weakest link. But Robinson, despite her slight physique (5’3”, size 10), isn’t nervous of anything. She grew up tough. Her mother built up a successful poultry business and had a market stall. ‘My brother and I spent half the summer holidays selling chickens at the stall,’ she grins, ‘and half at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes.’ She Dress by Marni, glasses from Specsavers 76 The Oldie July 2021
describes her mother as ‘the Queen of Misrule’: critical, sarcastic, cynical. ‘Being with my parents was pretty much like being in the newsroom at the Daily Mail. I felt quite at home when I ended up there.’ Soon after leaving school, Robinson was taken on by the Mail as its first female trainee. She was quickly promoted when she got her first scoop – about Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s suicide at 32, in 1967. Her second, as an editor on the Mirror, was the news of Princess Diana’s eating disorder. It made headlines around the world – but the Palace complained. Robinson was told by her boss, ‘You go off and do television, blossom. That’s what you’re good at.’ She did just that and soon drew a huge following for her many programmes, most famously The Weakest Link, which aired from 2000 to 2012. Robinson says she owes her success to what the nun called her ‘boldness’ – her daring. ‘If I had been Huw Edwards’s identical twin sister, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. Curiosity, a notebook and a biro were what I needed on a newspaper, but for TV it’s fitness and nerve and really decent clothes. And a very good haircut.’ Robinson likes what she calls a ‘slightly kookie’ look. ‘I am always terrified of being like a lady mayor or a motherof-the-bride.’ She chooses edgy designers with a modern feel: Comme des Garçons, Bottega, Alexander McQueen, Marni and Issey Miyake. Dover Street Market is her favourite source. The huge success of The Weakest Link had everything to do with Robinson’s sexy schoolmarm
At Farnborough Hill school (right), 1961
style – which came about almost accidentally. She turned up for the very first rehearsals in her own black leather clothes and everyone loved the look. There will be no black on Countdown – they are going for colour. Over the six months of the series, Robinson and her stylist will have to find dozens of outfits that will look good not just on her, but alongside those of Rachel Riley and Susie Dent, the assistant presenters. This degree of shopping is truly challenging. It was seeing herself on Watchdog that prompted Robinson go for her famous facelift. ‘There was a bit at the end when I had to move forward and say, “Goodnight and thank you for watching Watchdog” – AND IT WAS MY MOTHER SPEAKING.’ She lives in the Cotswolds, and spent lockdowns with daughter Emma and her family. As her mother once advised, Robinson has a facial every week. She loves Liz Earle hot-cloth cleanser, Chanel foundation and MAC make-up. The immaculate haircut she owes to Robbie at Richard Ward, and the colour to Adam, in the same salon. Specsavers provides most of her 60 pairs of glasses. Robinson follows a daunting weekly regime of daily running, two sessions of Pilates and two sessions with a trainer. ‘I don’t do any of these things because they are fun. It is all in the name of keeping fit enough to work eight hours a day. If you want to be on TV at 76, it matters.’ Countdown is airing now (Channel 4)
