Richard Baker
BBC newsreader and music presenter who was seen as embodying the corporation at its best
RICHARD BAKER, the broadcaster who has died aged 93, was the first person to read the BBC television news and remained the urbane and authoritative voice of BBC news and classical music programmes. Until 1954, television news as such did not exist; at the end of every evening there was simply a repeat reading of the main radio news, while the screen showed a BBC test card. Then, on July 5 1954, the BBC screened a picture of Nelson’s Column, and Richard Baker, not seen on the screen, announced: “Here is an illustrated summary of the news and latest film of events at home and abroad.” The main stories were the Petrov Russian spy scandal, early tests of the Comet, Britain’s revolutionary jetliner, and the end of meat rationing.
Press reaction was critical, but the BBC persisted and by September the audience was allowed to see the newscasters’ faces. “Initially they kept us off the screen because they were afraid that our expression would betray some political bias which would detract from the pure stream of truth,” Baker recalled.
“It was only when ITN threatened to go on air with personality-type newscasters that the BBC rather nervously decided to try out Kenneth Kendall and myself on the late-night news summary.”
Baker would go on to spend more than 50 years with the BBC, primarily as a newsreader but also as a presenter of cultural programmes, including television coverage of the Proms, classical music programmes and Start the Week on radio. He came to be seen as something of a BBC institution, a valued link between the modern Birtist corporation and its venerable Reithian past.
In later life, Baker recalled being accosted by a small boy, nudged forward by an old lady: “My gran wants to know: ‘Were you Richard Baker?’ the boy asked.”
“I was,” replied Baker, amused. “And I am.” “She remembers you reading the news,” the boy announced proudly. “She says you’re historical.”
Richard Douglas James Baker was born in Willesden on June 15 1925 and educated at Kilburn Grammar School. His mother, Jane, played the piano and his father, Albert, a plasterer by trade, was an amateur singer. Baker grew up surrounded by classical music and learnt to play the piano and cello, though his first ambition was to be an actor.
He won an exhibition to read History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, but his studies were interrupted by three years’ war service in the Royal Navy (1943-46) in which he rose to the rank of sub-lieutenant. As a junior RNVR officer in the sloop Peacock, he took part in the sinking of two German U-boats while escorting convoys in the Arctic.
Postwar, he continued in the Royal Naval Reserve, when in annual training periods he served in the cruiser Tiger and once was catapulted into the air from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. Awarded the Reserve Decoration in 1978, he retired as a lieutenant commander. He regularly gave his services to naval charities and in 2015 was awarded the Ushakov medal for his service during the war.
He wrote two naval biographies: the bestselling The Terror of Tobermory
(1972), a humorous wartime biography of Vice Admiral Sir Gilbert “Puggy” Stephenson, under whom he had briefly served when working up Peacock; and Dry Ginger (1977), an affectionate and perceptive account of his friend “Lef ”, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Michael Le Fanu, one of the most brilliant and unorthodox naval officers of his generation.
Baker kept naval hours throughout his life, rising extraordinarily early even in his nineties to write letters or tinker with a memoir. He was often puzzled when family members were reluctant to join him for a cup of tea at 6am.
When he returned to Cambridge to complete his degree, he found it difficult to adjust to academic pursuits and even spent six months seeing a psychotherapist. He had spent some of his time in the Navy organising entertainments and eventually accommodated himself to university life through the theatre, appearing in Footlights productions and directing plays for the Marlowe Society.
After graduating, he spent two years in rep at the Dolphin Theatre in Brighton and a year teaching, before writing to the BBC asking if they wanted any actors. The corporation replied saying that it had no vacancies for actors, but might need an announcer.
On the day he signed the contract, Baker had a telegram from the manager of the Dolphin Theatre asking him to audition for a part in the West End. To the end of his life he remained unsure whether he had made the right choice.
Baker spent his first three years with the BBC as a Third Programme announcer. He read the news for 28 years until 1982, when the BBC began phasing in newsreaders who were journalists rather than actors. By then Baker had become one of the most familiar faces in Britain, not only as a newsreader but also as a panellist on BBC Two’s Face the Music.
Baker’s public profile brought him sackloads of fan mail from women, some of whom seemed to be under the delusion that he could see them from the television screen. “I used to get letters saying: ‘Dear Mr Baker, I’m sorry I wasn’t looking my best last night when you looked in’.”
One widow left him £1,500 in her will, while other viewers sent presents according to their perception of the presenter: Robert Dougall, Baker recalled, would receive whisky, Kenneth Kendall got “rather distinguished things in leather”, and Baker would receive knitwear.
He made guest appearances during the 1970s with the Monty Python team (he was required to say: “Lemon curry?”), and on several occasions with Morecambe and Wise, most notably the often repeated “Newsreaders’
South Pacific” sketch.
In addition to reading the news, he introduced the Last Night of the Proms for 32 years, and hosted Start
the Week on Radio 4 for 17 years. Other regular commitments included the New Year Concert from Vienna and the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall.
He became well-known for his outside broadcasts, covering, among other events, Francis Chichester’s return to Britain after his round-theworld voyage; President Nixon’s visit to Buckingham Palace; the funeral of Yuri Gagarin; and the Prince of Wales’s investiture at Caernarvon.
He also narrated the children’s television series Mary, Mungo and Midge, and presented many record programmes on radio, including These You Have Loved and Baker’s Dozen.
In 1995 Baker surprised the media world by announcing his defection from the BBC to take over the
Classic Countdown series from Paul Gambaccini at Classic FM. His role as the DJ of the classical music charts did not suit him – one critic likened his performance to “a dowager trying to fit into a miniskirt”, and he was soon shifted to a job presenting the Classic FM Evening Concert six nights a week. In 1997 he returned to the BBC, as co-presenter of Sound Stories on Radio 3 and presenter of an eight-part series on Radio 4 called Musical Directors.
As well as presenting regular weekly programmes on BBC Radio 3, Baker presented Melodies for You for on Radio 2 for several years and became the presenter of the channel’s Your Hundred Best Tunes upon the death of its longtime presenter, Alan Keith.
Outside broadcasting, he gave poetry recitals, recorded books for the blind and hosted classical music cruises for P&O. He wrote several books on music, including biographies of Mozart and Schubert.
Latterly, as Gyles Brandreth related in The Oldie, Baker had moved into a retirement community in which, as his son James explained, “he reads all the newspapers and cuts out the interesting stories and then, in the evening, reads them out loud to the other residents while they are having supper”.
Richard Baker received the Newscaster of the Year award on three occasions, and in 1984 was the Variety Club’s Radio Personality of the Year. In 1976, he was appointed OBE for services to broadcasting.
He married, in 1961, Margaret Martin (they met in the cradle, as their mothers were friends); she survives him with their two sons, Andrew, a section editor at the Telegraph, and James, head of an international television company.
Richard Baker, born June 15 1925, died November 17 2018