Although Arnie Wilson comes from an artistic  background (his father, Bernard, was a composer who met his wife Joan, a concert pianist, at London’s Wigmore Hall where they were both featured in a concert) he has inherited few of their talents. ‘I failed to learn the French horn, my favourite instrument, but did manage to play the flute in the Canterbury Youth Orchestra for a while,’ he says. It was as a journalist rather than as a flautist that Wilson made his mark.

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Wilson spent 15 years in television – 10 of them on screen  as a news and current affairs reporter before becoming  the Financial Times ski correspondent in 1986. A passionate  hobby had taken over his life.

 

During his 15 years with the FT he wrote more than 250  articles on skiing. In 1994 he  skied every day for a year in the Financial Times Round The  World Ski Expedition – a feat which took him to 240  resorts in 13 countries around the world, and into the Guinness Book of Records. The story was  told in Ski The World, with an introduction from Clint  Eastwood, who he met on his travels.  

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Arnie lives with his Swedish wife  Vivianne in Haywards Heath, Mid-Sussex. He is a keen supporter of Mid-Downs Radio and has voiced a number of the station’s idents.  He is  also the voice of ‘Nocturne’ an hour of classical  music on Sunday evenings on MDR.