Getting into journalism: Rory Bremner and DIY filming did it for Frank Gardner

Former Bahrain banker Frank Gardner continues our series of blogs about alternative ways into journalism. Starting again at the bottom, aged 33, was a challenge:

But after years of doing business I was determined to follow my true calling: indulging my lifelong curiosity in international current affairs combined with a fascination for the Middle East.

This was not a sudden decision on a whim. Years before making the switch I had started to dovetail myself into journalism by buying a camcorder and filming the blazing Kuwaiti oil wells left behind by Saddam's forces. I wrote travel pieces about remote places for the Sunday Times, Time Out and others, and made a short tourism film about Latvia which ended up costing rather more to make than it earned.

When I left finance I thought: right, how do I get into this news thing? At 33 years of age I had a bit of catching up to do. People I knew from school and university were now years ahead of me on the journalism ladder. James Mates, for example, was already a household name at ITN; Ed Gorman had embedded himself with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and written acclaimed pieces for the Sunday Times.

So I put myself through a number of short courses in London. The first was a week-long radio production course at Morley College learning how to do interviews and use natural sound to make good radio. I was set some homework and told to record the Today programme for discussion the next day, but overslept and missed the whole programme and was told I would probably never make it in journalism.

I did a brief diploma in general journalism at the London School of Journalism, and I did an extremely useful course in TV journalism that was run by ex-BBC hands at Thames Valley University. Here we took turns at being presenter, producer, interviewee, studio manager, sound recordist, and even lighting technician. It redoubled my enthusiasm to get into this business.

But my break came when I joined the Royal Television Society (RTS) and went to a talk given by the comic satirist Rory Bremner. I went up to him afterwards to ask him for advice and he could not have been kinder. He gave me names, which I followed up, hammering metaphorically on managers' doors until I secured two weeks’ unpaid work experience at BBC World News, the satellite TV arm of BBC News. "You look a bit older than the school leavers we usually get," said an editor suspiciously, adding: "Do you want to just get a flavour of what we do or do you want to be useful?"

Well of course I wanted to be useful, so I threw myself into the business of learning all the jargon of TV production. "Hey, can you go and cut an OOV for the bullies, then turn round that donut for TX at the top of the next hour," someone would shout - more of an order than a request.

When my two weeks were up I volunteered to carry the kit, unpaid, for a freelance cameraman called Peter Jouvenal, who was going off to film in war-torn Afghanistan. But just before the trip a BBC planner rang to ask if I was available for freelance shifts at Television Centre. I was in!

Over the next two years I learned as much as I could, putting myself forward for the less popular weekend, bank holiday and night shifts. I shadowed cameramen to learn about lighting, sequences, gels and windshields, and with another lucky break I went to Israel with Hardtalk to help produce a series of political interviews. I also started sending myself on solo trips to places like Iran and Oman, filming obscure business stories for World Business Report that only just covered my expenses but got me on the map.

Finally, I got the BBC to accredit me to report from the Gulf as a stringer. "You'll starve," warned the assignments editor. But Yemen, Iraq and the US Navy's aircraft carriers kept me busy and two years after that I was lucky enough to get the Middle East correspondent job in Cairo.

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