Ian McCaskill (born John Robertson McCaskill; 28 July 1938 – 10 December 2016) was a Scottish meteorologist and television and radio presenter, who frequently presented weather forecasts on the BBC.
Early life
McCaskill was born John Robertson McCaskill in Glasgow on 28 July 1938. He was the son of an insurance agent, McCaskill attended Queen's Park Secondary in Glasgow, and then the University of Glasgow, where he read geology and chemistry in his bid to go into teaching, after giving up his ambition to become a doctor because the university required an undergraduate degree before enrolling at the University of Glasgow School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing. He had a two-year break from the BBC from 1983 to 1985 when he did weather forecasting for Central Television at Birmingham Airport. McCaskill made his final BBC television broadcast on 14 June 1998, He retired from the Met Office on 31 July 1998 in order to spend more time with his family. including by the satirical comedy show Spitting Image and by impersonator Rory Bremner. In 1998, McCaskill helped the Post Office launch a range of six new insurance policies, and appeared in a comedic television advertisement for BT pay phones set in Brighton. He read the weather in a guest role for two weeks on the ITV breakfast franchise GMTV in lieu of Simon Keeling in mid-1999, and in the same year, presented the BBC Two series The Essential Guide to the Weather.
McCaskill worked as a motivational speaker, and was also a guest on various other programmes. McCaskill was a panellist on Have I Got News for You in October 1998, as well as in a number of television advertisements. McCaskill was a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and the vice-president of the Epilepsy Society.
Personal life and death
McCaskill lived at Seer Green, near Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. He had two daughters with his first wife Lesley Charlesworth, a teacher, to whom he was married from 1959 until her death from breast cancer in 1992.