Laurie Macmillan

Who was Laurie Macmillan?

Laurie Macmillan was a BBC Radio 4 newsreader and continuity announcer born in Aberdeen on the east coast of Scotland.

Educated at Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls, Monmouthshire and then at Newcastle University graduating with a degree in Politics and Philosophy.

She joined the BBC in 1968 as a Trainee Studio Manager, became a studio manager in 1973 and an announcer in 1975. Easily recognisable in the BBC Newsroom by her thick dark hair that was so long she would frequently end up sitting on it. Worked on The World at One, PM, It's Your Line and You and Yours on BBC Radio 4, also occasionally working on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Local Radio, and briefly reading the news on Newsnight on BBC2.

Wrote and presented a schools radio series on industrial geography, and was for a time an aficionado of Radio 4's Bells on Sunday, becoming an expert on peals of Grandsire Doubles and Stedman Triples.

In the late 1970s she and partner Martine Ronaldson moved to Sticklepath in Devon. They renovated the cottage and she grew organic vegetables. She maintained a broad range of interests - attending evening classes studying astronomy looking at what was a sky relatively clear of light pollution; studying Gaelic she tried it out while on walking holidays in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, later returning to Radio 4 on a part-time basis.