Richard Baker dies at 93

[CharlieOneSix]

Former BBC newsreader Richard Baker has died at the age of 93. As someone else has said he was THE newsreader for a generation of us.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46246049

[Capetonian]

That's a voice and a face from my teens, along with his colleague Robert Dougall with whose son Alastair I shared many dull lessons at school.

I have unfond memories of trudging through the bleak and rainy mountains of Snowdonia, particularly Glydr Fach and Glydr Fawr, which we named 'Glydr F*ck and Glydr what for', when I did my DoE expedition for the Gold Award. It seemed a million miles away from home, but it was a comforting link at the end of a miserable day to walk along the mean dark streets of a Welsh village and see, through the windows of the cottages, Baker or Dougall reading the 6 o'clock news.

Alastair used to tell us about some of the letters his Dad received.
"Dear Mr Dougall, I do hope you don't mind me writing to you, but when you read the news the top of your head gets cut off. Could you sit a bit lower in your chair, please".
"Dear Mr Dougall, I enjoy watching you reading the news but I am very short sighted and have to sit close to the screen. I hope this does not distract you too much."

[Karearea]

One longs for the days of well-spoken impartial news-reading. *sigh*

[Boac]

That dreadful BBC woman 'news reader', Anita McVeigh, should take lessons from him. She is totally unable to handle anything 'live' like 'breaking news' which she needs to repeat in case SHE has not got it..... and her performance 'outside', live is embarrassing, with stumbling, incoherent sentences. Mind you, I wouldn't kick her out of bed, so she's not ALL bad.

[603DX]

For me, he was the last of a noteworthy trinity of BBC television newsreaders (Robert Dougall, Kenneth Kendall and Richard Baker), who possessed "gravitas" and a natural air of authority. If they had announced the outbreak of WW3, I would have been inclined to believe it. Each of them had an enviably clear speaking voice, and a calm educated delivery which communicated a ring of truth to the bulletins they were reading from the teleprompt. Richard Baker also benefitted from the confidence earned from his admirable wartime command service in the RNVR, escorting Arctic convoys. He was an excellent presenter of good music at the BBC Proms, and musical radio programmes, after retirement from his years of newsreading.

There were a couple of ITN newsreaders that impressed me too, for different reasons. Tim Brinton had a "BBC air" about him, perhaps because he started with them, and on retiring from ITN he served for several years as a county councillor and MP in Kent. Reginald Bosanquet had such a likeable personality that the occasional "slurred" delivery (which may have been epileptic rather than alcoholic) hardly diminished the veracity of the newscast. Anyway, who couldn't feel supportive of the son of the inventor of the "googly"? He lived for a few years in a flat at the "louche" end of King's Road Chelsea, not far from my residence - I never saw him looking other than sober in the "World's End" area.

[Slasher]

One longs for the days of well-spoken impartial news-reading. *sigh*

I agree. Oz had a bloody extraordinary nice old bloke Eric Pearce (later sir) who worked the General TeleVision 9 as the newsreader. He was bloody good.