Graham Robb, Partner, Recognition Marketing and Public Relations
Nov 22 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal
Aspiring politician, radio personality and public relations firm boss Graham Robb has battled Peter Mandelson for a parliamentary seat and dined with David Cameron. Peter McCusker finds how he has balanced work and politics.
WHEN Graham Robb told his mother Sylvia he wanted to be a radio DJ she told him to change his name, adding: “I’m not having it”.
Within a few weeks Robb had enrolled on a audio-visual technology course at a Middlesbrough college. He says the qualification bit helped persuade his mother it was a worthwhile career.
Later the controller of Radio Tees came to visit the budding broadcasters on the course so Robb asked him for a job and after a trial he landed the 1am to 5am slot.
“Prostitutes, insomniacs and mad people were my listeners. I’d go to college, have a sleep and then head off to work,” he smiles.
This was all before he had turned 18. His coming of age saw him promoted to the 10am to 1pm slot, and this was where he learned to speak confidently in public.
“We would do a live show once a week and I would appear alongside a stand-up called Peter DeeDee. We had a kind of double act thing in the pubs and clubs of Teesside. The jokes were pretty rude,” he says and recites one which clearly proves his point.
He says it was an invaluable experience which rid him of any fears of public speaking and stood him in good stead while fronting the opposition campaign to a North East regional assembly in 2004. By the time he was 21 he had his own news show.
“I was brash, cocky and I thought to myself ‘who would be the most high-profile guest?’ Margaret Thatcher, of course, so I wrote to her and she said ‘yes’.
“She was right at the height of her power. We had a cup of tea together before we went on air. I was terrified. She asked me why we had so few Conservative MPs in the North East. There were four at the time! I was diplomatic, saying there was not enough local candidates. I didn’t tell her that it was to do with the high levels of unemployment or the fact she was hated.”
Robb describes his parents as aspirational working class. They owned their own terraced house in Middlesbrough. His mother was a housewife, dad Hugh a local Government clerk and he was the eldest of three siblings.
While politics would be discussed in the house, he never knew his family’s political allegiances. “’It’s a secret ballot, son’ my dad would always say.”
