Anne Robinson

Anne Josephine Robinson (born 26 September 1944) is an English television presenter and journalist, best known as the host of BBC game show The Weakest Link from 2000 to 2017. She presented the Channel 4 game show Countdown from June 2021 to July 2022, taking over from Nick Hewer. She left the programme on 13 July 2022 after recording 265 episodes, and was succeeded by Colin Murray. Early life Robinson was born in Crosby, Lancashire, on 26 September 1944 and is of British Irish descent. Her father was a schoolteacher. Her mother, Anne Josephine (née Wilson), was an agricultural businesswoman from Northern Ireland, where she was the manager of a market stall. When she came to England, she married into her husband's family of wholesale chicken dealers, and sold rationed rabbit following the Second World War. She inherited the family market stall in Liverpool and transformed it into one of the largest wholesale poultry dealing businesses in the north of England. Brought up initially at the family home in Crosby, Robinson attended a private Roman Catholic convent boarding school in Hampshire, Farnborough Hill Convent, now known as Farnborough Hill. She was hired as a chicken gutter and saleswoman during the holidays in the family business, before taking office jobs at a law firm. The family spent their summers on holiday in France, often at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes. Career