BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner to visit Haileybury

Frank Gardner OBE, the BBC’s Security Correspondent, will visit Haileybury on 9 May 2012 to deliver a talk on "The Middle East". This is the third in a series of lectures to celebrate the School’s 150th anniversary this year.

Mr Gardner is the BBC’s first full-time Security Correspondent, reporting for TV, radio and online on issues of both UK and international security. In 2004 he was shot six times at close range by Al-Qaeda gunmen while filming in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia but survived with major injuries. He is an Arabist with a degree in Arabic & Islamic Studies from Exeter University and he worked all over the Gulf before becoming the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent in Cairo. He has reported firsthand on terrorism and security from around the Middle East, notably Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US, Guantanamo Bay and the Horn of Africa. He has given evidence to various UK Parliamentary Select Committees on the conduct of the War on Terrorism. He was awarded the OBE by HM The Queen in 2005 for services to journalism, awarded Honorary Doctorates of Laws by Nottingham, Staffordshire and Exeter Universities, the McWhirter Award for Bravery, Spain’s El Mundo Prize for International Journalism, the Zayed Medal for Journalism and voted Person of the Year by the UK Press Gazette. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and his Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blood and Sand’, describing his 25 years of Middle Eastern experiences, was published by Transworld in 2006. His most recent book, Far Horizons, about unusual journeys to unusual places, was published in paperback in July 2010.

So that we may gauge the number of people who would like to attend the talk, we would be grateful if tickets could be booked by calling the Box Office on 01992 706229 or via this link.