Thomas, Linda

Olumide was born in London. Her name derives from the Yoruba tribe in West Africa and roughly translates as ‘child of God’.

She spent six years of her childhood in Nigeria before returning to the UK and settling in Devon.

Linda gained an honours degree in modern languages (French and Spanish) at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology.

In 1977, Linda joined BBC External Services (later World Service) as an assistant in news information.

In 1980, she applied for an attachment as a trainee BBC Radio 4 announcer, followed by a year as a BBC Radio 2 announcer (1981 – 1982), where she was known as Linda or ‘Lu’.

Linda moved to television as a network announcer for BBC One and BBC Two (1982 – 1983).

At the end of 1983, she went freelance and joined Channel 4 as an announcer/presenter, where she remained until approximately 1987.

Linda was one of the presenters on Look Forward (Channel 4, 1983), in which that week’s duty announcer presented clips of upcoming programmes and short interviews with cast or crew members.

She later worked occasionally as an announcer at TVS in the late 1980s and voiced BBC TV presentation trails (c. 1988).

In 1989, she returned to BBC Radio 2 as Olumide Thomas, presenting various shows including Nightride and String Sound.

Personal information

Clips of Linda on The TV Room

Linda may be featured in video/audio clips on our other websites. Click the links below to display a listing (a 404 error will appear if no clips are found):

Rewind | Clean Feed

Online presence

Acknowledgements