Frank Gardner (journalist)


Francis Rolleston Gardner is a British journalist and author. He is currently the BBC's Security Correspondent.

Early life

Gardner's father and mother, Robert Neil Gardner and Evelyn Grace Rolleston, were both diplomats, and when he was six he moved from the UK to the Hague in the Netherlands. His grandfather was physician John Davy Rolleston. Educated at Saint Ronan's School, and Marlborough College, Gardner was pushed by his teachers into taking up biathlon, which enabled him to travel to Austria to train with the British Army biathlon team.
When he was 16, Gardner met the Arabian explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger, and was invited to the explorer's home in Chelsea. Partly as a result – and partly reasoning that knowing the Arabic language would make him employable in that part of the world – he was determined to study Arabic.
In his gap year Gardner saved up by working in a brick factory then went backpacking from Morocco to Istanbul, then travelled to Manila in the Philippines, to go hiking in the mountains of Luzon. He returned to study at the University of Exeter, graduating in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

Career

Military service

Gardner was commissioned on 23 May 1984 as a second lieutenant. On 30 September 1984, he transferred from the general list to the 4th Volunteer Battalion, the Royal Green Jackets, as a second lieutenant and was given seniority from 23 May 1984. His commission was confirmed and his rank of second lieutenant was dated to 23 May 1984 with seniority from 23 May 1982. He was promoted to lieutenant on 30 September 1985, with seniority from 23 May 1984. He was promoted to captain on 1 October 1990, with seniority 1 February 1989.
In September 1988 Gardner and his Recce Platoon completed the British Army's patrolling endurance test, the Cambrian Patrol in Wales. He later served briefly on attachment to 1st Bn The Parachute Regiment in Oman.
On 11 November 1993, Gardner was appointed a captain in the Regular Army Reserve. He returned to the Territorial Army on 24 April 1997, serving in the Educational and Training Services Branch of the Adjutant General's Corps. He was promoted to major in the Territorial Army on 1 July 2006.

Banking

Gardner worked as a marketing manager for Gulf Exports from 1984 to 1986 and in trading and sales for Saudi International Bank from 1986 to 1990. He worked for 5 years for Robert Fleming Bank from 1990 to 1995, becoming Director of Middle East. He had a nine-year career as an investment banker.

Journalism

In 1995 he left banking and joined BBC World as a producer and reporter. He became the BBC's first full-time Gulf correspondent in 1997, setting up as a freelance stringer in Dubai. In 1999 Gardner was appointed BBC Middle East correspondent in charge of the bureau in Cairo, but travelled throughout the region. After the 11 September attacks on New York, from 2002 onwards Gardner focused on global security stories, often seeking to redress popular misconceptions about the Arab world.
On 6 June 2004, while reporting from Al-Suwaidi, a district of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, notorious for extremism, Gardner was shot six times and seriously injured in an attack by al-Qaida gunmen. His colleague, Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers, was shot dead. Of the bullets which hit Gardner in his torso one hit his spinal nerves and he was left partially paralysed in the legs and since then has used a wheelchair. The pair's official Saudi Arabian government minders fled the scene and were then questioned extensively by Saudi detectives before being cleared of any involvement in the attack. The Saudi Ambassador to London promised that compensation would be paid but this never happened.
After 14 surgical operations, seven months in hospital and months of rehabilitation, he returned to reporting for the BBC in mid-2005, using a wheelchair or a frame. Despite his injury, he still frequently reports from the field including places like Afghanistan and Colombia but usually comments on top stories from a BBC studio.
One of the gunmen who shot Gardner and Cumbers, Adel al-Dhubaiti, was captured and executed by Saudi authorities in January 2016.

Other media work

In 2011, Gardner presented Tintin's Adventure with Frank Gardner for the BBC, a documentary in which he retraced Herge's character Tintin's journey from Brussels to Berlin to Moscow on his first ever adventure – Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
In March 2012, Gardner pulled out of hosting the Counter-Terrorism and Specialist Security Awards amid concerns that this would compromise the BBC's impartiality.
In September 2012, he revealed that Queen Elizabeth II had been upset some years earlier that Abu Hamza al-Masri could not be arrested. The BBC apologised later that day for the revelation.
In 2013 Gardner presented a 1-hour BBC2 documentary entitled 'Frank Gardner's Return to Saudi Arabia', visiting the Yemeni border, Jeddah, Eastern Province and the Riyadh hospital where he recovered from his attack in 2004.
In September 2015 Gardner presented an episode of the BBC's family history programme Who Do You Think You Are? in which he learned that he was directly descended from William The Conqueror.
In 2016, Gardner appeared on Channel 4's coverage of the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in his role as President of the GB Ski Club.
In 2016 Gardner teamed up with Benedict Allen in the BBC Two two-part documentary Birds of Paradise: The Ultimate Quest. During an expedition to Papua New Guinea, they sought the elusive birds-of-paradise, including the King of Saxony. The programme was broadcast on 3 and 10 February 2017.
On Friday 11 August 2017 Gardner co-presented the Today programme on Radio 4 with John Humphrys. On 6 January 2018 he again co-presented Today, this time with Nick Robinson.
In June 2018, Gardner chaired the keynote stage across the first 2 days of the security industry event IFSEC International, taking place in the ExCeL exhibition center in London.

Honours and awards

In the 2005 Birthday Honours, Gardner was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to journalism. As a Territorial Army officer, he was awarded the Efficiency Decoration for past years of service on 29 January 2008 and its replacement, the Volunteer Reserves Service Medal, on 8 March 2011. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Law by the University of Nottingham, Staffordshire University, the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia and the Open University. He has also received the McWhirter Award for Bravery, Spain’s El Mundo Prize for International Journalism, the Zayed Medal for Journalism and been voted Person of the Year by the UK Press Gazette. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Publications

Gardner's Sunday Times bestseller Blood and Sand, describing his 25 years of Middle Eastern experiences, was published by Transworld in 2006. His book Far Horizons, about unusual journeys to unusual places, was published in May 2009.
Gardner's bestselling first novel, Crisis, featuring the fictional SBS officer-turned MI6 operative Luke Carlton and a ruthless Colombian drug lord, was published in June 2016.
His second novel, Ultimatum, also a bestseller, was published in June 2018.

Hobbies

Gardner remains a keen skier and scuba diver despite his injuries. After his spinal injury and having attended a training course for disabled skiers, he resumed skiing using a sitski, a device that allows disabled people to ski while seated. In November 2011 he was elected honorary president of the Ski Club of Great Britain for 6 years. He is now a Patron of Disability Snowsport UK.
He is a birdwatcher and presented a September 2009 BBC Archive Hour programme on Sir Peter Scott.
In 2019 he was elected President of the British Trust for Ornithology