Nicky Campbell

Nicholas Andrew Argyll Campbell OBE (born Nicholas Lackey; 10 April 1961) is a Scottish broadcaster and journalist.

Campbell was born in Portobello, Edinburgh, in April 1961, and was taken for adoption at just a few days old.

His biological parents were both Irish.

His unmarried mother, Stella Lackey, was an Irish Protestant matron at a Dublin hospital.

She was single when Campbell was conceived during a secretive affair.

She travelled from Ireland to Edinburgh, where she gave birth to her son.

His Belfast-born father, Eugene Hughes, also known as Joseph Leahy, was then a Catholic policeman, 14 years Stella's junior, and was also formerly an Irish Republican.

18 months before Nicky was born, Stella gave birth to his half-sister, Esther, also taken for adoption.

His adoptive mother, Sheila, was a psychiatric social worker, and his adoptive father, Frank, a publisher of maps.

He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, an independent school.

In July 2022 he disclosed that he witnessed and experienced sexual and violent physical abuse there, which had a "profound effect on [his] life".

He studied History at the University of Aberdeen and graduated with a 2:1 degree.

In his 2021 memoir ‘One of the Family’ Campbell describes his lifelong obsession with radio and how he and his best friend at the time, the actor Iain Glen, would call various Radio Forth phone-in shows pretending to be different characters.

He started working for Northsound Radio in Aberdeen while still at University there, making commercials and writing jingles.

He has worked in television and radio since 1981 and as a network presenter with BBC Radio since 1987.

In 1983 he was offered his own show, The World of Opera, which aired every Sunday night at 9pm.

On one occasion the DJ presenting the late night pop show after him did not turn up and Campbell had to take the reins.

Shortly after this he was offered the station's Breakfast Show, which he presented until 1986, when he sent a tape to Capital Radio in London and was given a try-out on the Saturday Afternoon Show.

He then took over the Weekend Breakfast Show from Roger Scott and was used as a daytime "dep" for all the main daytime programmes.

The Capital Radio roster at the time included Roger Scott, Kenny Everett, Alan Freeman, Chris Tarrant and David ‘Kid’ Jensen.

It was while standing in for Tarrant and also Jensen that the Head of Music at Radio One Doreen Davis poached him from Capital and he joined the national network in October 1987.

He first presented the late night Saturday programme but was soon moved to the weekend early show.

In 1989 he was offered the weekday late night slot which was named Into the Night.

He played a wide variety of music and hosted an eclectic selection of guests for long interviews.

These included Frank Zappa, David Icke, John Major, the Bee Gees and the Reverend Ian Paisley.

He was also regularly joined by Frankie Howerd in the last years of the comedian's life.

In August 1993, Campbell also briefly took over a Sunday morning show, following the on-air resignation of Dave Lee Travis.

Campbell left the network briefly in October 1993 to care for his sick wife.

He then returned in January 1994 to present the weekday Drivetime show, and in 1995, he took over the afternoon show.

In 1997 he joined the news and sport network BBC Radio 5 Live, when offered the job by Roger Mosey, the station's head.

In 2001 when Radio 2 wanted a replacement for Jimmy Young, he said that he was the BBC's choice and detailed a series of meetings between himself and the controller of Radio 2.

However, the BBC later said that Campbell had initiated the meetings himself, and his public revelations about private negotiations prompted the wrath of the Director General Greg Dyke.

He presented the mid-morning phone in show for 5 years before replacing Julian Worricker in the breakfast slot in January 2003, co-presenting initially with Victoria Derbyshire.

From 2004 to 2011, he co-presented the programme with Shelagh Fogarty.

In May 2011, Fogarty left the breakfast show and was replaced by Rachel Burden.

Campbell started presenting a one hour at 9am phone-in ‘Your Call’ after the main show.

Burden and Campbell presented together until 2021 when Campbell moved to a two-hour phone-in programme from nine to eleven every weekday morning.

Between April and October 2023 his show has been broadcast on the BBC News Channel, the iPlayer and BBC2.

His radio career also includes notable work for BBC Radio 2.

In January 2019 Campbell presented ‘Engelbert; 60 years of song’, a musical retrospective and in-depth interview with Engelbert Humperdink.