Carolyn Quinn presents The Westminster Hour and Saturday PM on BBC Radio 4.

 

After a French degree, she trained to be a teacher but had always had a yearning to be a journalist. She gave up teaching, got a job as a ward clerk at Charing Cross Hospital and started to volunteer on the hospital radio station.

 

She freelanced before joining the Irish Post and was then selected for a BBC Local Radio trainee scheme. After training and two years at BBC Radio Solent, Carolyn became a reporter on the local radio desk for the BBC at Westminster.

 

In 1992 she was appointed Parliamentary Correspondent, reporting for Today and Yesterday In Parliament.

 

In 1994 she became a Political Correspondent covering radio and television, a job she did until October 2006. One of her first broadcasts involved doorstepping Tony Blair live on air, just after he had been elected Labour leader.

 

In 1997 Carolyn covered the general election as the correspondent on Paddy Ashdown's election bus. In 2001 she was the Political Correspondent assigned to follow the Prime Minister across the country during the election campaign.

 

Carolyn was one of the presenters on Today on Radio 4 from January 2004 to April 2008, and has presented the Radio 4 election programmes with James Naughtie since 2005.

 

In January 2007 she took over as presenter on The Westminster Hour, a job she now combines with presenting Saturday PM and weekday PMs when the regular presenter Eddie Mair is away.

 

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