An Essex boy born and bred, Richard spent his childhood in Romford before embarking on a television career that would see him transported from local news reporter to one half of the “King and Queen” of daytime television.

 

Poor eyesight put an end to his ambitions of becoming a pilot in the Royal Air Force, and Richard began his career as a cub reporter for The Brentwood Argus before joining BBC Radio Carlisle as a news producer and presenter at the age of 19. After two years presenting reports for regional programme Calendar, Richard headed to Lancashire where he started work at Granada TV, and first met Judy.

 

Born in Newton Heath, Manchester, Judy pursued her love of literature by studying English and Drama at Bristol University. After participating in numerous dramatic productions, Judy decided that a life “treading the boards” might not be for her.

 

Judy joined Granada as a researcher, before spending a year living in New York in which she spent most of her time scraping by on less than five dollars a day. Returning home, Judy joined Anglia Television and became the station’s first female reporter. She returned to Granada where she first met Richard.

 

Richard and Judy recorded their first episode of This Morning in October 1988, live from Liverpool’s Albert Dock. The pair made This Morning one of the most fondly regarded British television programmes of the last twenty years.

 

The show also saw the birth of one of the most influential forces in British literature. The Richard & Judy Book club, along with the Richard & Judy Summer Read, was responsible for a revolution in the nation’s reading habits that still remains a literary phenomenon half a decade on. 

 

 

www.richardandjudy.co.uk