Richard Baker R.I.P. (and who is/was your favourite newsreader)?

[Brundle-Fly]

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

I love the recent story of him in his care home regularly reading out the news from the morning paper to the delight of his fellow residents in the communal lounge.  Very much part of my childhood and hearing his voice today just feels me with a longing.

Regarding other favourites, I have a great fondness for the pissed up Peter Woods and Reggie Bosanquet. Gordon Honeycombe just for his name and interest in the macabre. Kirsty Young for that sass and voice. The winner? Kenneth Kendall. The Sgt Wilson of reportage.

[Maurice Yeatman]

I have a great fondness for the pissed up Peter Woods and Reggie Bosanquet.

More hard-bitten journalists self-medicating with alcohol reading the news please.

Alastair Burnet, occasionally side-tracked into royal reportage as parodied by Spitting Image and Private Eye, was another one.

In person, Burnet was a shy, sensitive man whose reticence was often mistaken for arrogance and whose controlled manner covered many insecurities. In his early days he would be sick before facing the camera; and in 1990, as boardroom tensions came to a head, he made the front pages of the tabloids after being discovered by the police wandering in a London street with a badly cut and bruised nose. Alcohol, he conceded (whisky was one of his recreations), may have had something to do with it.
At the same time, though, Burnet could be the life and soul of the party and was always the first to put his hand in his pocket at the bar. The night he presented his last news bulletin, the ITN newsroom was packed and there was hardly a dry eye in the house.

A short retrospective from that final News at Ten: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ4ff1snVUw#t=24m02s

Robert Kee - ex-RAF pilot who spent 3 years in a German POW camp, later campaigning on behalf of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven - was another. And Sandy Gall (still going at 91), a war reporter embedded in Vietnam, and later in Afghanistan. Intelligent men, their manner understandably sardonic. Paxman and Simon McCoy aren't really the same thing.

[maett]

I'm a shallow man and enjoy Mishal Hussain's slow eye blinks.

[Brundle-Fly]

r. And Sandy Gall (still going at 91), a war reporter embedded in Vietnam, and later in Afghanistan. Intelligent men, their manner understandably sardonic.

Didn't Sandy Gall have some sort of accident and had a big scar on his bonce? I always lump him in with Leonard Parkin for some reason.

[Gulftastic]

Ellie Crisell is my favourite. She started off on Newsround. When CBBC did a sports day for their presenters, I got a look at her legs. Lovely.

Check her out in this Strictly For Comic Relief dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF1fOKRapgU

Bonus Louis Minchin, too.

[im barry bethel]

Andrew Gardner on the Thames evening news during the Ashtar Galactic Command incident

Also Lisa Aziz, party for the sound of her name partly because she was much easier on the eye than Gordon Honeycombe

[Chriddof]

Andrew Gardner on the Thames evening news during the Ashtar Galactic Command incident

That was Southern, not Thames. Also it appears to have happened during an ITN bulletin.

[Norton Canes]

I always had a soft spot for Leonard Parkin.

Hardest Catchphrase round ever

I used to think the guy on the keyboard was actually playing the theme tune

[Norton Canes]

Also Lisa Aziz, party for the sound of her name

Why I liked Nina Nannar

[manticore]

As a child I found Richard Baker's manner and delivery of the news of war and mass famine strangely reassuring, and I'm saddened by this.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Lemon curry!?

[Brundle-Fly]

As a child I found Richard Baker's manner and delivery of the news of war and mass famine strangely reassuring, and I'm saddened by this.

I remember my father describing his classical music choices on his Radio 3 show as 'rather moribund'

[Durance Vile]

As a child I found Richard Baker's manner and delivery of the news of war and mass famine strangely reassuring, and I'm saddened by this.

He wasn't strictly a newsreader, but James Alexander Gordon had a similar effect.

There's a bloke on Radio Kent who reads out out the classified results but gets the intonation so comprehensively wrong that I actually have to turn the sound off:  it's that confusing. You'd think the first thing they teach them at sports reporter school would be the Alexander-Gordonian Principles.

[Jockice]

Why I liked Nina Nannar

Why I like Fatima Manji. Do you think Cathal Coughlan claims royalties?

[Colin Sanction]

As this probably the only place I can write this. In the Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine song The Only Living Boy in New Cross, at 3:07, I have always sang "Richard Baker's Jaffa Tone Waders". It was only when I Googled the lyrics years later that I found out these were not the lyrics.

Listen for yourself https://youtu.be/nGaX9lWBTMQ?t=184

[Neville Chamberlain]

The mighty Chris Vacher made me the man I am today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUbkbJ-qrZo

[buzby]

On network news, it was Peter Sissons and Anna Ford.
For local news, the great Gordon Burns and Bob Greaves (RIP)
<inevitable ziggy mention of Lucy Meacock>

[pigamus]

I haven't watched Midlands Today for years, but I hope the gorgeous Shefali Oza is still going.

[big al]

Mike Neville; he had the twinkly favourite uncle manner about him, and I, and probably everyone else in the North East, felt genuinely sad when he died.

[Jockice]

Mike Neville; he had the twinkly favourite uncle manner about him, and I, and probably everyone else in the North East, felt genuinely sad when he died.

Wasn't Roger Mellie based on him?

Regional newsreaders joke! When does Harry Gration have his dinner? When Khalid Aziz!

[Bennett Brauer]

On network news, it was Peter Sissons and Anna Ford.
For local news, the great Gordon Burns and Bob Greaves (RIP)

Coincidentally Anna Ford was a reporter and presenter alongside Greaves, and she occasionally read the news on Granada Reports before she went national.

Burns and Greaves looking unintentionally like Peter Cook and Eric Morecambe.


Seems strange now to think that Bob Greaves predeceased his much younger co-presenter Tony Wilson by 3 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvlzPWAMeSw

[Brundle-Fly]

Burns and Greaves looking unintentionally like Peter Cook and Eric Morecambe.

I'm seeing Gordon Burns and Arthur Askey.

[gilbertharding]

I was amazed to see, last time I was at my Mum and Dad's house in Huntingdonshire that Stuart White was STILL presenting Look East - a job he's done since he was a fresh faced 37 year old in 1984.

Not to be confused with the still-more ancient Ian Masters (pictured) who might still be alive on Radio Norfolk


Or Judi Lines who no longer works in tv:


But you asked me who my favourite newsreader was? I'd have to say the comfortingly stentorian, baggy-eyed terrifier Peter Woods. The absolute star-turn in Morecambe and Wise's South Pacific sketch, and (apparently) Justin Webb's real dad.

[gilbertharding]

I was going to post something about Kenneth Kendall. There's a sad story. You can find it yourself if you like.

[KennyMonster]

Why I liked Nina Nannar

Yeah but every time I hear her name being announced I have to pull my car over because I think there's an emergency service trying to get through.

[manticore]

I was going to post something about Kenneth Kendall. There's a sad story. You can find it yourself if you like.

I looked that up and it made me well up a bit. There's a particular kind of sadness and poignancy about a person feeling so strongly for someone that they can't face life without them after being together for so long.

[pigamus]

Yeah but every time I hear her name being announced I have to pull my car over because I think there's an emergency service trying to get through.

Her name sounds like it should precede Saturday Night by Whigfield.

[Captain Z]

Hi I'm Ellie Crisell with your 92nd update.

[pigamus]

On network news, it was Peter Sissons and Anna Ford.

I remember seeing a clip of Anna Ford from about 1974 on some documentary and I literally gasped. The kind of woman who's so beautiful you wouldn't even post her in the wanking thread because it would somehow seem disrespectful.

[Colin Sanction]

I remember seeing a clip of Anna Ford from about 1974 on some documentary and I literally gasped. The kind of woman who's so beautiful you wouldn't even post her in the wanking thread because it would somehow seem disrespectful.

Yeah, see what you mean