Region full of energy, ex-White House advisor says

Dr Fiona Hill was in Durham for the launch of her podcast series

A former White House advisor and university vice-chancellor has said the North-East is "full of energy and possibilities".

Dr Fiona Hill was in Durham to launch her new podcast, Forged in the North, as part of the Durham Book Festival.

The series explore how the region has shaped the lives of successful people from Sting to Sara Davies.

Dr Hill, who was born in Bishop Auckland, said: "It does matter because the North-East is my home and also I think the North-East is a land of amazing stories."

Dr Hill left the region when she was 18 to go to university in Scotland and later to work in the United States, where she served on the National Security Council.

She was appointed chancellor of Durham University in 2023 and is currently also senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

"The thing that's worried me the most is how much the United Kingdom has in many respects just paid very little attention to the north," she said.

"You go around the rest of the UK and other parts of the world, they're just not really familiar with what the north-east is.

"I feel always there's a lot of energy here, a lot of possibility."

Dr Hill's podcast series also feature Kim McGuinness, Paul Kennedy, Lee Hall, Peter Straughan, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, and Brendan Foster.

She said the podcast was an opportunity to highlight the region.

"It'd be great for other people to know that the North-East is not just a feature or a function of its past, it's not just somewhere to visit and go to castles and stately homes and beautiful countryside, but it's somewhere that's vibrant and that has lots of possibilities ahead of it," Dr Hill said.

She added she missed the North-East "a lot".

"I never really intended to go away and not come back," Dr Hill said.