Tom Heap

Thomas John Gillespie "Tom" Heap[1] (born 6 January 1966) is the Rural Affairs Correspondent of BBC News, and a United Kingdom television and radio reporter and presenter best known for his contributions to the BBC One programme Countryfile, the same channel's Panorama programme, and the BBC Radio 4 programme Costing the Earth. Since February 2012, he has also been Director and media presenter of the media company Checked Shirt TV Limited.[3]

Tom Heap
Born
Thomas John Gillespie Heap[1]

(1966-01-03) 3 January 1966
NationalityBritish
EducationOakham School, Rutland[2]
(independent boarding and day school)
Hills Road Sixth Form College
OccupationJournalist, presenter, company director
EmployerBBC News
Known forBBC Rural Affairs Correspondent
Countryfile presenter (BBC One)
Panorama reporter (BBC One)
Costing the Earth reporter (BBC Radio 4)
director, Checked Shirt TV Ltd.
Fmr. BBC Science and Environment Correspondent

Early life

Heap is the son of John Heap, a former scientific adviser who became the head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Polar Regions Section (from 1975 to 1992), and Margaret Grace Gillespie Spicer,[1] known as 'Peg',[4] the daughter of Captain Sir Stewart Spicer, Baronet, of the Royal Navy. He has two sisters.[4]

Education

Heap was educated at Oakham School, a boarding and day independent school in the market town of Oakham in Rutland in central England, where he was trained to abseil by the Lieutenant M.B. Rochester of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF),[5] and won a Bronze Duke of Edinburgh's Award in 1980.[6]

Life and career

Heap began his broadcasting career with Sky News as a sound mixer. He then joined a News Trainee scheme with BBC News and worked on the Today programme, the BBC News 24 channel and Panorama. He became a correspondent specialising in and around rural affairs, science and the environment and took on a newly created role as the Rural Affairs Correspondent for BBC News. In and around 2013 he reported for the BBC live from the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest with the broadcasting team covering the 50th anniversary of the conquest of the mountain.[7][8][9] After making contributions to Countryfile, in and around April 2012 he took over the investigative reporter role on the programme from John Craven.[10] In 2014 he interviewed Anne, Princess Royal in this role.[11]

Family

Tom Heap married Tammany Robin Stone in 1992,[1] and lives in Napton-on-the-Hill near the market town of Southam in Warwickshire, south of the city of Coventry.[3]

During an edition of Countryfile screened on 9 November 2014, it was revealed that Heap is the great nephew of Olympic medallist and soldier Thomas Gillespie who was killed in action at La Bassee, France in October 1914 aged 21.

gollark: It also seems to be using a few % of the CPU at all times (or at least at all times when I have SSH to it going, which... uses Tailscale...), presumably since the Pi has no crypto acceleration due to bee.
gollark: Since it has things like a HTTP client, and userspace Wireguard-ing.
gollark: For all that tailscale fairly good it is probably not ideal on *really* resource-constrained systems.
gollark: (it does not run any software except tailscale and sshd)
gollark: (30MB of which is tailscale)

References
  1. "Thomas John Gillespie Heap". ThePeerage.com. 28 October 2012. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  2. "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award at Oakham School 1960–2011" (PDF). Oakham School, Rutland. 21 May 2011. p. 30. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  3. "Checked Shirt TV Limited". OpenCompany.co.uk. Archived from the original on 22 August 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  4. "Obituaries: John Heap". The Daily Telegraph. London. 18 March 2006. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  5. "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award at Oakham School 1960–2011" (PDF). Oakham School, Rutland. 21 May 2011. p. 30. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  6. "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award at Oakham School 1960–2011" (PDF). Oakham School, Rutland. 21 May 2011. p. 101. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  7. Tom Heap at BBC. Retrieved 2 March 2014
  8. Tom Heap web page. Retrieved 2 March 2014
  9. Tom Heap at Royal Geographic Society 21st Century Challenges. Retrieved 4 March 2014
  10. Tom Heap at FWI. Retrieved 2 March 2014
  11. Western Daily Press Countryfile Princess Royal Comments. Retrieved 6 April 2014
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