Alistair Cooke was born in Manchester in 1908 and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard Universities. Throughout his long career he worked as a journalist and broadcaster for a number of different organisations including the BBC, The Times and the Guardian, and won numerous awards for his work. He is best known both at home and abroad for the weekly Letters from America, far and away the longest-running radio series in broadcasting history. He died in March 2004, just a few weeks after his retirement.