John Simpson

John Simpson CBE (born 9 August 1944) as John Cody Fidler at Cleveleys, Lancashire, in 1944, the son of Roy Simpson Fidler and his wife, Joyce Lela Vivian Keen.

Births Sep 1944

• Fidler John C [mother] Cody Fylde 8e 973 Lancashire

He is an English foreign correspondent and world affairs editor of BBC News. He has spent all his working life at the BBC, reporting from more than 120 countries, including thirty war zones, and has interviewed many world leaders.

He was educated at Dulwich College Preparatory School and St Paul's School, followed by Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was editor of Granta magazine. In 1965 he was a member of the Magdalene University Challenge team. A year later Simpson started as a trainee sub-editor at BBC radio news.

John Simpson has two daughters, Julia and Eleanor, by his first marriage to American Diane Petteys. He married Dee (Adele) Kruger, a South African television producer, in 1996. They had a son, Rafe, in January 2006. His grandmother was born in Ireland, and so he holds British and Irish citizenship; he moved back to London in 2005 after living in Ireland for several years.