Tributes to onlyTV reporter to witness Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech
REG Harcourt started his television career in the late 1950s with ATV Midlands – the forerunner of today’s ITV News Central after having worked on the Nottingham Evening Post, the now-defunct Evening Despatch in Birmingham and Caters News Agency.
Harcourt was actually the first journalist to read the news on ATV bulletins with ATV Midlands and he became a regular presenter/interviewer with the launch of ATV Today, specialising in crime and industry.
He turned his attention to politics becoming programme editor/presenter of the regional Left Right and Centre and later Central Lobby political programmes. Later he became Central’s political editor dividing his time between Westminster and Birmingham.
ITV News Central presenter Bob Warman said: “Reg’s television news career was long and distinguished. “When I arrived at ATV Today in 1973, he was a very established reporter and presenter and he taught me much of my craft.
“He was in at the beginning; he’d interviewed all the big names of the day from politics to show-business, and he was equally adept at overcoming some of the pitfalls of live studio programming, of which there were many in the early days.” Harcourt was a life member of the National Union of Journalists and a member of Birmingham Press Club for almost 60 years,
Warman, who is president of Birmingham Press Club, added: “Long after retirement he and his wife Annie, took an active part in the social life of the Birmingham Press Club where they were a popular couple. He always took great delight in recalling times which were filled with laughter.”
Other tributes came from ex-Birmingham Evening Mail deputy editor Tony Dickens who described Reg as a “true gentleman-journalist.” In an interview with then Birmingham Mail entertainments editor Graham Young, following his retirement, Harcourt recalled some of the highlights of his lively career in regional news, including being the only TV journalist in attendance when MP Enoch Powell gave his infamous “rivers of blood” speech.
The date was April 20, 1968, four days before the Labour government’s Race Relations Bill was to have its second reading. Harcourt recalled: “My editor, Bob Gillman, had received a copy of the speech Enoch was going to make at the Midland Hotel. Both of us realised it was going to be a special day. It was a Saturday and I was the only TV journalist there.
“There was still no regional evening news on a Saturday so my report was shipped to ITN.”
Addressing a Conservative Association meeting, Powell predicted that “in this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” He wondered if by the year 2000, the number of ‘‘Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants’’ would be ‘‘in the region of five to seven million, approximately onetenth of the whole population’’.
Approaching his final words, he added: ‘‘As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood’’.
Looking back on his single-most memorable day at work, Harcourt said: “Listening to Enoch speaking, the language he used was riveting. I managed to find out that the next day he would be at a riding school near Wolverhampton with his two daughters. So, we turned up and interviewed him again and asked him: ‘Why did you do it?’
“From then on, he always remembered me.”
Interestingly, although Powell had put himself in a political straitjacket, he never had any issues with Harcourt, unlike some modern footballers who blame the media for their own ills.
“I carried on interviewing him about it every year,” said Harcourt.
“One year later, two years later... five years later! A lot of the live stuff was never recorded that day and five years later some idiot said the whole archive was taking up too much room so a lot of it was thrown away, along with early episodes of Crossroads!”
Born in East Dulwich, Harcourt is survived by his widow, Annie, a former Birmingham Evening Mail reporter, his daughter Jennifer, sonin-law James and grandchildren William and Oliver. He died on January 12 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.