10 more : saturday, august 4, 2012 LMM-E01-S2 LMMO LMM-E01-S2 LMMO saturday, august 4, 2012 more : 11 I had a very free, rural, outdoorsy upbringing on my parents’ farm in south Leicestershire. I was lucky. I did what I wanted. I went where I wanted to go. I made dens in haystacks with my brother. We climbed trees. We ran in fields and I made mud pies with my best friend, Polly. I return to Leicestershire a lot. My friend Polly – of infant mud pie fame – gets married in March next year. I’m her bridesmaid. We’ve been best friends since childhood. It’s the seventh time I’ve been a bridesmaid. My life... it’s a bit like that movie 27 Dresses. I went to Great Glen Prep School and then I went to a boarding school in Hertfordshire from the age of 11 to 18. I’m not a typical boarding-school- posh-girl, though. I settled in quite quickly. My elder sister was there, which obviously helped, but I also played a lot of hockey, which helped, too. I shattered the middle finger of my right hand in a hockey game, which was excruciating. Academically, I was quite strong. I excelled in all of my lessons – oh dear, that sounds bad doesn’t it? I was stronger in science and maths, I guess, a bit weaker at essay writing. I passed 12 GCSEs and three A-levels. I took A-level English against every- one’s advice. They thought I would be better to take science subjects I was predicted ABB. I got BBC. I buggered up a bit. By this time, though, I knew I wanted to do something in the media. I just didn’t know what. I did theatre at Royal Holloway Uni, near Ascot, and spent a year in Australia as part of the course, where I did a lot of journalism. I did a post-grad Diploma in broadcast journalism in 2004/05 at the University of Westminster. I came back to Leicestershire after uni and lived with my parents on the farm. I know some students can find that a bit difficult, moving back in with their mum and dad, but I loved it. They’re good people, very laid-back. It really wasn’t an issue. They run the farm, but there’s also the family business, HJ Hall, a hosiery firm that makes socks. It was in the news recently, for bringing production back to Hinckley from Turkey. We have made socks for 130 years. I love being part of something that has been going for so long. That makes me feel proud. I got a placement with Radio Leicester after I returned home and then I moved on to BBC Coventry and Warwickshire. I freelanced there for 10 months. Things were going well. I was enjoying it. It was a great experience – and then I risked it all by quitting and going into PR. The Blades were an aviation aerobat- ic display team. They’d just formed and they wanted help with publicity and someone I knew recommended me. They took a gamble on me. I took a gamble on them. But it worked. It was a great job, I learned so much about PR and how it works and exactly what journalists want and how I could get as much publicity for them on TV and in newspapers. A year later, I handed in my notice. I desperately wanted to be a journalist, and it wasn’t going to happen if I was There have COUNTRY LIFE: Philippa loved growing up on the family farm in south Leicestershire Here’s looking at you, kid more : People Philippa Hall, 31, Sky News TV anchor doing PR for an aerobatic display team. It was a huge risk. I had nothing lined up. I think what finally persuaded me to make the jump was the day I was driving home from work and listening to Radio 1 and the guy reading the news was someone I had worked with at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire and I thought: ‘I’m as good as him – why am I not doing that?’ I went back to doing freelance work on local radio, but looking constantly for a break in London. I started free- lancing for Sky in 2008. I did everything; reading the bulletins, reporting, producing. It was great fun and gave me an understanding of how everything works on a TV news station. It was a huge jump, though. I’d done my time on local radio so I had a good background in journalism, but it took a while for it all to slot into place. I’ve been at Sky now since 2008 and I’ve been a news presenter since September 2009. Which stories do I remember? Oh my, there are so many. I remember coming into work as the news came in that Raoul Moat was on the run after killing his girlfriend and shooting a policeman. That was a memorable story to follow. I remember I came in on a nightshift and they’d tracked him down and were closing in on him when I came on air. What do we do from there? Well, we just tell the story as best as we can. We put the pieces of the jigsaw together. The Moat story is the perfect example of that. A number of correspondents, different angles developing all the time. It was the kind of story where the story can change every 20 minutes and fly off in a completely different direction. It’s my job to piece all that together in the studio, ask the right questions, keep it going, just do your job, basically. There were some hairy moments in the early weeks and months. You have to remain calm and always be ready to ask the next question – because there’s always another question, always something else you can ask. You need to have faith in yourself. What helped me, I think, was that I did drama classes as a girl and performed in plays at university. That acting background has helped me as a presenter. It’s like the duck on the water. You only show the serene part, not the frantic paddling that’s going on underneath. It gives you an air of confidence, I think. Am I ambitious? Oh gosh. I think maybe other people would say I am. I don’t think I am. I think I am determ- ined. If there’s something I want to do, I’ll try to do it. I was at a leaving party for a former colleague on BBC Coventry a few months ago. Another former colleague said to me: ‘Well, Philippa, you did always say you’d be on Sky.’ And I did. It surprised me, but that kind of determination is part of me. I live in West London with my boy- friend – who is also from Leicestershire, he’s an old family friend and we’ve known each other for years – but I come back to Leicestershire a lot. I’m a big Tigers fan. We used to go to Welford Road a lot when I was a girl and if I’m back for the weekend, I try to catch a game. Where next for me? Who knows? I don’t know. I like that. It’s exciting, a bit daunting, perhaps, but liberating too. You should never be too daunted by life. There have been many forks in the road, so far, in my life. Do I have any regrets? I don’t, no. I don’t think you should ever regret life. Maybe I’m just lucky, but that’s the way I feel. I suppose I could choose to have regrets. But, also, I could choose not to. So I chose not to. Regret is the clouding of the mind. It is the fear of doing wrong when we should be guided by the desire to do better. That sounds profound doesn’t it? I heard that on the radio the other day and it stuck with me. I thought: that will be useful one day. And here we are. ● M: more : People been many forks in the road in my life, but I’ve no regrets