TALES TO TELL - 'There are amazing women doing incredible things...we don't hear their stories'

Journalist Louise Minchin shares her passion for adventure as she celebrates kindred spirits across the globe

- SARAH TULLOCH

Louise Minchin has always been a woman who has chosen to walk the road less travelled. Easy routes – whether as a journalist, presenter or mother-of-two – are not an option for the 55-year-old. “I’m absolutely passionate about adventure and being intrepid, courageous, brave,” explains Louise, who spent 20 years on BBC Breakfast before taking her leave in 2021.

“I get so much from doing challenges that I then bring to other parts of my life. I’m much more resilient when the going gets tough.” And in a long and varied TV and radio career, she has had to be extraordinarily resilient.

In the early noughties, while working on Radio 5 Live, BBC bosses told Louise to “find another job” when she asked if she could reduce her work hours to spend more time at home after giving birth to her first daughter Mia.

“That was a long time ago now – my daughter is now 22 – and I hope and have been assured by the BBC that things have changed. But, at the time, it was really hard because I was working in the evening,” she tells OK!. “I was working from 4pm till midnight with a six-month-old, and I asked if I could reduce my hours or do one day a week less, but was told that wasn’t going to be possible.”

She refused to accept such treatment and called their bluff, leaving the role for pastures new. “A lot has changed, so I can’t speak for people’s experiences now, but I have been assured that that would not be the case any more.”