LIBBY PURVES

'Libby Purves' OBE(born February 2 1950 in London, England) is a radio presenter, journalist and author. A diplomat's daughter, she was educated at convent schools in Bangkok (Thailand), South Africa and France, and then Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells.
Purves won a scholarship to St Anne's College, Oxford where she obtained a first-class honours degree and rose to the rank of Librarian (Vice President) of the Oxford Union. In 1971, she joined the BBC as a studio manager. In 1976, at the age of 28, she joined Brian Redhead on the BBC's ''Today'' programme, becoming the show's first female presenter. She currently presents ''Midweek'' on BBC Radio 4 and the education programme ''The Learning Curve''. Purves also writes a column for ''The Times'' newspaper. She was named columnist of the year in 1999 and in the same year received the OBE for services to journalism.
She has written a series of books on childcare, eleven well-regarded novels (e g ''Mother Country'', 2002, the most recent being ''Love Songs and Lies'' , 2007), and a travel book, ''One Summer's Grace'', about a 1700-mile sailing journey round Britain with children aged three and five.
She is married to Paul Heiney and they live near Leiston in Suffolk, close to her mother's home in Southwold. They have one living child, Rose Heiney, actress and writer, who graduated from Oxford in 2006 and who has also been an occasional columnist for ''The Times'' newspaper. Their first child, Nicholas, a gifted writer and Oxford graduate, died on 26th June 2006 at the age of 23. He hanged himself in the family home after a struggle with serious mental illness. A collection of his sea-logs of a Pacific journey under square-rig, and of his poetry, will be published in Autumn 2007.