Background

Denise Robertson was born on June 9, 1933, in Sunderland, United Kingdom. She was the youngest of two daughters of Herbert Stanley and Catherine Maud Broderick (Cahill).

Education

Denise Robertson attended Sunderland High School.

Later in life, she received an honorary degree from Sunderland University.

Career

Denise Robertson's first job was as a clerk at Sunderland Royal Infirmary, followed by promotion to a medical secretary. While working as a counselor in the 1970s, she wrote in her spare time and sent some work to the BBC.

Robertson began her TV career in 1985 hosting the junior advice line feature on Breakfast Time, the BBC’s early morning news. Later, she accepted ITV’s offer of a daily daytime slot aimed mainly at housewives. Denise planned to stay in the job for just a year but remained in this position for more than twenty years.

Before her television career started she was also employed as an agony aunt on Metro Radio in Newcastle.

Away from the television studio, she served as an independent on her local council, drove for the Meals On Wheels service and for 10 years chaired her local physically handicapped club. In 1983 Denise formed a trust with five others, funded by the Manpower Services Commission, to provide work for the long-term unemployed. By 1988 the group found jobs for more than 240 people. Denise Robertson briefly hosted her own television series, Dear Denise, in 2000. She also appeared regularly on Channel 5’s Big Brother’s Bit On The Side.

Denise Robertson was also a prolific author, setting most of her two dozen novels in her native north-east. Her first novel, Nurse In Doubt, a hospital romance, was published by Mills & Boon in 1984. Her second, The Land of Lost Content, was followed by A Year of Winter and Blue Remembered Hills. She published further novels for nearly 30 years. Her last was Don’t Cry Aloud. Her autobiography Agony? Don’t Get Me Started was published in 2008.

Achievements

• In 1998 Denise Robertson was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Co Durham, and in 2006 was awarded the Freedom of the City of Sunderland and appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to broadcasting and to charity.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Relax It's Only a Baby!

    (Relax It’s Only a Baby! is a practical, accessible and re...)

    2005
  • Blue Remembered Hills

    (As single mum Fran embarks on her new career tragedy stri...)

    1987
  • Remember the Moment 1990
  • None To Make You Cry 1989
  • The Tides of Peace 2010
  • The Anxious Heart 1992
  • Towards Jerusalem 1993
  • The Beloved People 1992
  • Strength for the Morning 1993
  • A Relative Freedom 1994
  • The Winds of War 2009
  • Wait for the Day 1997
  • Endgame 2011
  • Daybreak 1996
  • Agony? Don't get me Started 2006
  • Illusion 1999
  • A Year of Winter 1986
  • The Land of Lost Content 1985
  • The Second Wife 1989
  • The Promise 2008

Connections

Denise Robertson married Alex Robertson in 1960. After his death in 1972, she married John Tomlin. He died of a stroke in 1995. In 1997 she married her childhood boyfriend, Bryan Thubron. She had the son of her first marriage and three stepsons.

Father:

Herbert Stanley Broderick

Mother:

Catherine Maud Broderick (Cahill)

Spouse:

Bryan Thubron

late spouse:

Alex Robertson

late spouse:

John Tomlin