Being born in north-east England gives you grit, says Fiona Hill

There is a “resilience and grit” that comes from being born in the north-east of England, says Fiona Hill, who went from a working-class childhood in County Durham to a top intelligence job at the heart of the White House.

But, she believes, it is also a big reason why she and other notable high achievers have had the success they have. The secret of success could be being from the north-east.

Hill has talked to a number of figures from – or with strong links to – the north-east for her new Forged in the North podcast series, which will be launched at Durham book festival in October.

They include two global figures originally from the same part of Wallsend: the Cramlington primary school teacher turned superstar Sting, and the Yale historian Paul Kennedy.

“It’s basically just listening to two people who seem on the surface so completely different but have this common origin story,” says Hill.

Other podcast guests are Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot; Brendan Foster, the founder of the Great North Run; the north-east mayor, Kim McGuinness; the Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Sara Davies; the dramatist Peter Straughan; and the Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, who lives in Stockton-on-Tees.

Hill was born and brought up in Bishop Auckland, the daughter of a coalminer and a midwife. She and her accent went on to be a foreign affairs adviser to US presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump and she is considered one of the world’s leading experts on Russia and Putin.

Last year she was named as one of three advisers to oversee the UK government’s strategic defence review.

The new series is born, Hill says, of a belief that “too much happens down in London, as if the rest of the country doesn’t exist”.

The hope is to “put the spotlight on a region that is normally only in the headlines for something going wrong: child poverty, the lowest life expectancy, worst nutrition”, she says.

“The north-east is home of the Industrial Revolution – literally the engines of prosperity. Two hundred years ago, it was the forefront of innovation, and we’re saying, there’s still a lot of potential for innovation.”

Hill turns 60 this year and is planning a trip back to the north-east from her home in the US. She says: “I’ve always wanted to walk along a portion of Hadrian’s Wall, I want to go back up the Northumberland coast. I want to come back for all the stories and storytelling I remember as a kid from the region.”

It was in this context that the idea of the podcast series came about, with the aim of telling stories about the north “not just how it was, but how it is and how it might be”.

Many cultural figures have talked passionately about the importance of where they are from. The Hull-born playwright Richard Bean once said: “Thank God I wasn’t born in Guildford. Thank God I was born somewhere there is tragedy and comedy every other second.”

Hill says coming from the north-east gives “a certain resilience and grit”. “Being from the north-east grounds you, it’s an anchor, a solid base with a strong sense of what’s right and wrong and a clear perspective and values.”

She points to a recent poll revealing how people from the north-east have a stronger attachment to their region than other parts of England. “There’s a sense of solidarity that’s been forged in adversity. Everyone’s thrown all kinds of rubbish at the north historically … but it has a resilience.”

The importance of investing in people while they are young is a theme of the podcast discussions, says Hill, who got a grant from the Durham Miners’ Association to take a Russian language course to pursue her ambition to go to university.

Straughan and Hall got started with enterprise grants and through locally funded theatres. Interestingly, McGuinness and Davies, both younger interviewees, say they had to make their own luck, with Davies using her savings to start her successful business.

McGuinness says the series resonated with her ambition for the north-east to be a cultural powerhouse. “This important podcast shines a light on how with the right support, talent can truly thrive.

“Funding in our region’s art sector has been outpaced by the south for some time. I’m determined to fix that cultural chasm and the cycle of regional inequality, positioning the north-east as a strong contender in the UK economy.”