Former BBC News Presenter Richard Baker dies at 93

BBC News Richard Baker Dies at       e

News presenter Richard Baker, who introduced the first TV news bulletin on the BBC in 1954, has died at the aged of 93.

The son of a plasterer, Baker was born in Willesden, North London, and educated at the former Kilburn Grammar School and at Peterhouse, Cambridge.

After graduation, he was an actor at Birmingham Rep and a teacher at Wilson’s School, Camberwell. He served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II and was awarded the Royal Naval Reserve decoration.

He started at the BBC as an announcer, introducing the first BBC television news broadcast on 5 July 1954. He is also closely associated with classical music, and presented many music programmes on both television and radio, including, for many years, the annual live broadcast from the Last Night of the Proms. He was a regular panellist on the classical music quiz show Face the Music.

Baker made cameo appearances in three episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and in the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show. He also narrated Mary Mungo & Midge (1969), a children’s cartoon produced for the BBC, and Teddy Edward (1973), another children’s series, as well as Prokofiev’s composition for children Peter and the Wolf.

https://twitter.com/alstewitn/status/1063782331088031744

On radio he presented Baker’s Dozen, Start the Week on Radio 4 from April 1970 until 1987, Mozart, These You Have Loved (1972–77), Melodies for You for BBC Radio 2 (1986–1995, 1999–2003) and the long-running Your Hundred Best Tunes for BBC Radio 2 on Sunday nights, taking over from Alan Keith, who died in 2003, before retiring in January 2007 when the programme was dropped by the BBC.

Baker died at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Posted by on Saturday 17 November 2018
Posted in
Bernard Ponsonby retires from STV

STV’s special correspondent Bernard Ponsonby has announced he is retiring from the channel after 34 years in the industry. He

Darren McCaffrey Images

Darren McCaffrey is making a return to Sky News. He left the organisation in 2018 to join Euronews before moving

Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis on Scoop

Scoop is a film based on the true events leading up to Prince Andrew’s explosive 2019 BBC Newsnight interview. The

Copy link