Frank Gardner (journalist)

Frank Rolleston Gardner, OBE (born 31 July 1961) is an English journalist and correspondent. He is currently the BBC's Security Correspondent. He was appointed an OBE in 2005 for his services to journalism.

Early life
Gardner's father and mother were both diplomats and when he was six he moved from the UK to the Hague in the Netherlands. The excitement of travel to a foreign country left a lasting impression. Educated at Saint Ronan's School, and Marlborough College, Gardner was pushed by his teachers into taking up biathlon, which enabled him to travel to Austria to train with the British Army biathlon team.

When he was 16, Gardner and his mother had met the Arabian explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger (whom his mother had previously known) on a bus. Invited to the explorer's home in Chelsea, the initially reluctant Gardner fell in love with Arabia. Partly as a result – and partly reasoning that knowing the Arabic language would make him recruitable in 22 countries many of which had oil – he was determined to study the Arabic language.

In his gap year Gardner went backpacking to Greece where, when working at a restaurant, he spotted an advertisement for a £100 one-way ticket to Manila in the Philippines. Once there, he spent time with the tribal people.

He returned to study at the University of Exeter, graduating in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

Between 1984 and 1990 he served in the Territorial Army. He was commissioned on 23 May 1984 as a second lieutenant (on probation). On 30 September 1984, he transferred from the general list to the 4th Volunteer Battalion, the Royal Green Jackets, as a second lieutenant (on probation) and was given seniority from 23 May 1984. His commission was confirmed and his rank of second lieutenant was dated to 23 May 1984 with seniority from 23 May 1982. He was promoted to lieutenant on 30 September 1985, with seniority from 23 May 1984. He was promoted to captain on 1 October 1990, with seniority 1 February 1989.

After a nine-year career in banking as an investment banker with Saudi International Bank and then Robert Fleming Bank from 1986 until 1995, Gardner left banking and started working in journalism for BBC World.

Journalism
In 1995 he joined BBC World as a producer and reporter, and became the BBC's first full-time Gulf correspondent in 1998, setting up an office in Dubai. In 2000 Gardner was appointed BBC Middle East correspondent in charge of the bureau in Cairo, but travelled throughout the region. After the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York, from 2002 Gardner specialised solely in covering stories related to the War on Terror.


 * "He was always cut out for journalism. When Kuwait was liberated, he was there with his camera, doing a piece like a reporter. He's a good communicator, incredibly good at thinking on his feet, knows how to handle situations spontaneously and comes across really well. I met him studying Arabic and Islamic Studies at Exeter University and described him as incredibly widely-travelled, especially in the Middle East. In one year he travelled to 28 countries. He's the sort of guy who will get through a passport because he runs out of room," said friend of 25 years Anthony Campanale.

On 6 June 2004, while reporting from Al-Suwaidi, a suburb of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Gardner was shot six times and seriously injured in an attack by al-Qaeda sympathisers. His colleague, Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers, was shot dead. Of the bullets which hit Gardner in his torso (others passed through his shoulder and leg) most missed his major organs but one hit his spinal nerves and he was left partly paralysed in the legs and dependent on a wheelchair. The Saudi Arabian government had forced Gardner to use official minders, who ran away once the firing started. The Saudi government promised compensation but in the end they never paid.

After 14 operations, seven months in hospital and months of rehabilitation he returned to reporting for the BBC in mid-2005, using a wheelchair or a frame. Despite his injury, he still occasionally reports from the field including places like Afghanistan and Colombia but usually comments on top stories from a BBC studio.

In 2011 Gardner presented Tintin's Adventure with Frank Gardner for the BBC, a documentary in which he travelled through Northern Europe following Tintin on his first ever adventure - Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

In March 2012 Gardner pulled out of hosting the Counter-Terrorism and Specialist Security Awards (CTSS) amid concerns that this would compromise the BBC's impartiality. The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) had complained to the BBC about Gardner's role in hosting what it described as an 'arms dealers' dinner'.

Controversy
In September 2012 he revealed that Queen Elizabeth II had been upset some years earlier that Abu Hamza al-Masri could not be arrested. The BBC apologised later that day for the revelation.

Awards
In 2005, for services to journalism, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Law by the University of Nottingham, Staffordshire University, the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia and the Open University. He has also received the McWhirter Award for Bravery, Spain’s El Mundo Prize for International Journalism, the Zayed Medal for Journalism and been voted Person of the Year by the UK Press Gazette. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Publications
Gardner's Sunday Times bestseller Blood and Sand (ISBN 978-0-553-81771-3), describing his 25 years of Middle Eastern experiences, was published by Transworld in 2006. His book, Far Horizons (ISBN 978-0-593-05968-5), about unusual journeys to unusual places, was published in May 2009.

Hobbies
Gardner is a keen skier. After his spinal injury and having attended a British Army training course for disabled skiers, he resumed skiing using a bobski (also called a sit-ski), a device that allows disabled people to ski while seated. In November 2011 he was elected Honorary President of the Ski Club of Great Britain.

He is also an avid birdwatcher and presented a September 2009 BBC Archive Hour programme on Sir Peter Scott.