[citation needed] During World War II, he received a commission into the British Army's Royal Artillery, with which he served from 1943.

He was discharged from the British Army in 1947 with the rank of Lieutenant, and went up to St Edmund Hall, Oxford to read law.

According to Dick Taverne, Day first came to notice by interviewing Sir Kenneth Clark, then chairman of the regulator Independent Television Authority.

His incisive and sometimes – by the standards of the day – abrasive interviewing style, together with his heavy-rimmed spectacles and trademark bow tie, made him an instantly recognisable and frequently impersonated figure over five decades.

This was a national phone-in programme that enabled ordinary people, for the first time, to put questions directly to the prime minister and other politicians (it later spawned Election Call).

In October 1982, during a Newsnight interview with the Conservative Secretary of State for Defence John Nott, pursuing cuts in defence expenditure, in particular Royal Navy, Day posed the question: "Why should the public on this issue believe you, a transient, here today and, if I may say so, gone tomorrow politician rather than a senior officer of many years' experience?"

After leaving Question Time, Day moved to the new satellite service BSB, where he presented the weekly political discussion programme Now Sir Robin.

Then Eric Morecambe, acting as a TV presenter, says: "Sadly, we've come to the end of today's 'Friendly Discussion with Robin Day'."

In this, he would frequently be shown interviewing then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who would always give answers somewhat unrelated to the question.

[10] His ashes were buried in a grave near the south door of the Church of St Candida and Holy Cross, at Whitchurch Canonicorum in the county of Dorset.

[citation needed] In 1965, Day married Katherine Ainslie, an Australian law don at St Anne's College, Oxford; the couple had two sons.

Day's elder son suffered multiple skull fractures in a childhood fall, and never fully recovered.

[11] The broadcaster Joan Bakewell recalled that, while Day was professional when in the office, he was disrespectful towards female newsreaders: "Socially he was a menace.

He was referenced in Monty Pythons Flying Circus in the “It’s the Arts” sketch, where according to John Cleese, he “had a hedgehog called Frank”.