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Bill Turnbull's Biography

 
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Who was Bill Turnbull?


He was best known for having been a presenter for BBC Breakfast.

He went to Eton and was in the same year as Justin Welby.

Bill Turnbull first joined BBC Breakfast as a reporter in 1988, and has been a presenter on the programme since 2001. His first film for the programme was about wild flowers.

Bill started out in local radio with Radio Clyde in Glasgow.

Bill Turnbull reported from over 30 countries, including four years as the BBC's Washington Correspondent.

He had a number of interesting hobbies including looking after chickens.

Turnbull also has four hives of bees and had run the London Marathon four times.

In 2005 Bill combined the two when he completed the London Marathon wearing a beekeeper’s suit - raising over £3,500 for the Bees for Development Trust.

Bill Turnbull was the official Wycombe Wanderers match commentator. In an interview with a Wycombe fansite, Turnbull said:

"I take my shoes off [presenting BBC breakfast TV] sometimes which can lead to complications – Carol Kirkwood picked one of them up once on air and complained that they ponged."

In Strictly Come Dancing 3 Bill tried to follow in the footsteps of another BBC news presenter, Natasha Kaplinsky, who won the series dancing with Brendan Cole.

Bill Turnbull's dancing partner was Karen Hardy. They ended up doing well in the series but it was not good enough as they were voted out in week 7.

Bill told Karen in the training for the first week, that he had an: "innate resistance to being told what to do".

On 2 September 2015, Bill Turnbull revealed that he was leaving BBC Breakfast after nearly 15 years. He finished on 26 February 2016.

Turnbull was still to appear regularly on television on, for example, Songs of Praise and Think Tank.

He also hosted a weekend show on Classic FM.

In 2018 Bill Turnbull talked about his chemotherapy treatment to treat his prostate cancer.

In 2019 he made a Channel Four documentary Bill Turnbull: Staying Alive.

In February 2020, it was announced that Bill Turnbull would reunite with Susanna Reid when he would fill in for Piers Morgan on ITV's Good Morning Britain.

He died on 31 August 2022, aged 66.



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