Tucked in between the sick bag and the emergency instructions, in-flight magazines were

traditionally as bland as
airline food, says Rob Brown. But then Virgin’s ‘Hot Air’ left BA’s ‘High Life’ standing on the runway…In one sense it is daft to talk about competition between inflight magazines. So now, I’m teetering on the brink of going for it as a presenter, and it’ll be very interesting to see how this year works out.. That was, of course, a new departure for me, because I’d just decided to stick with science, but I thought it was an opportunity I’d be mad to waste. It has been physically hard work – working 19-hour days, and spending a lot of time on the road – and my company has been mothballed for a while, because I’m doing so much work in London. I decided to go for science in a big way, and, last May, started working for Channel 5, doing their science features for the news.But then I got asked to front What’s The Story?, the channel’s weekly current affairs programme. So I tried to get more science and environment work, and started working for the Radio 4 series Costing The Earth, as well as having my own series on 5 Live called The Theory Query.

In 1996, I did a BBC current affairs-meets-science series called The Sci-Files, before producing a series for Channel 4 on the geography of Sri Lanka, which meant going out there for much of the year.I then realised I’d been working seven days a week for years, away from home – I still live in Scotland – and so needed to take stock. That was a brilliant opportunity, and I made it my own, with theme nights. In Scotland, that’s still what I’m best known for.But after 14 months, even though I really enjoyed it, I got a bit bored and started doing script-writing again on the side, for Channel 4 Schools. Also, in my holidays, I presented programmes for other companies, among them an environment one for Grampian called Country Matters. In the end, I realised I had enough work to keep me going as a fully-fledged independent for a year; I’d already set up my own company, Monster Media Productions.So, in 1994, I did another series of Ready Set Go, lots more environment stuff for Grampian, and a documentary on renewable energy sources By this stage, I was beginning to find my niche. I then moved into assistant producing, before getting the chance to present a six-part series for Channel 4, called Ready Set Go, alongside a red latex dragon puppet called Snorley – footage that will haunt me in years to come.That got me very much into the way of presenting, and in 1992 I moved across to the BBC to work in the newsroom, doing research in the morning, and producing and presenting their weather reports in the afternoon. He didn’t have a job for me on Scottish Women, but his partner was the producer-director of Wheel of Fortune, and I got a job on that writing the questions.I stayed in light entertainment at Scottish TV for about 2 years, and then worked in the documentary, education and features department, where I learned how to script-write.

And, while I was there, we had the producer of a programme called Scottish Women, for Scottish Television, as a patient. The physio knew I wanted to get into journalism, and she wouldn’t let him out of the surgery until he’d promised me an interview. But it also made me think hard about what I wanted to do, and I realised I’d enjoy journalism – particularly features, current affairs, social affairs and scientific journalism.By this time I’d moved to Scotland and, while I applied for these kinds of jobs, I got a job as a receptionist in a physio department. But Newcastle University forgot to fill in my paperwork, and I didn’t get my funding.

I was in total shock, thinking my next few years had just been wiped out. I realised that the science side of things was very much part of my character, and wanted to do something that got my boots dirty – so, in the end, I chose to read geography. I got offered a place at Hertford College, and as soon as I went there I made plans to do my thesis in Latin America. Luckily, I got a scholarship from the Royal Geographical Society, to do fieldwork in Mexico, and fell in love with academia. But I had to take a year out during my course, because I got viral encephalitis.
In 1990, I sat my finals, getting a first, and planned to do a PhD in Newcastle. One of the first careers I ever wanted to pursue was forensic science.