Richard Baker (broadcaster)
Encyclopedia
Richard Baker OBE (born 15 June 1925, Willesden
Willesden
Willesden is an area in North West London which forms part of the London Borough of Brent. It is situated 5 miles north west of Charing Cross...

, North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...

) is a British broadcaster best known as a newsreader for the BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

 from 1954 to 1982. He was a contemporary of Kenneth Kendall
Kenneth Kendall
Kenneth Kendall is a retired British broadcaster. He was a contemporary of Richard Baker and Robert Dougall...

 and Robert Dougall
Robert Dougall
Robert Dougall MBE was a British broadcaster and ornithologist, mainly known as a newsreader and announcer.-Television news:...

 and was the first person to read the BBC Television News (in voiceover) in 1954. At one time he lived in Barnet
Barnet
High Barnet or Chipping Barnet is a place in the London Borough of Barnet, North London, England. It is a suburban development built around a twelfth-century settlement and is located north north-west of Charing Cross. Its name is often abbreviated to Barnet, which is also the name of the London...

, North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...

. He and his wife Margaret have two sons; Andrew, a sports columnist at the Daily Telegraph and James, a senior executive at Sky TV
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....

.

Early life and education

The son of a plasterer, Baker was educated at the former Kilburn Grammar School
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 and at Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

. After graduation, he was an actor at Birmingham Rep and a teacher at Wilson's School
Wilson's School
Wilson's School is a boys' grammar school in Wallington, in the London Borough of Sutton, UK. Admission is based on performance in an entrance test with around 1,000 pupils being taught there....

, Camberwell
Camberwell
Camberwell is a district of south London, England, and forms part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is a built-up inner city district located southeast of Charing Cross. To the west it has a boundary with the London Borough of Lambeth.-Toponymy:...

. He served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and was awarded the Royal Naval Reserve decoration
Decoration for Officers of the Royal Naval Reserve
The Decoration for Officers of the Royal Naval Reserve was a medal awarded in the Royal Naval Reserve of the United Kingdom to officers with at least fifteen years of active duty...

.

Broadcasting career

He started at the BBC as an announcer and he also presented many classical music programmes on both television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

, including for many years the annual live broadcast from the Last Night of the Proms, and made cameo appearances in episodes 30 and 33 of Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...

. He also narrated Mary, Mungo and Midge
Mary Mungo & Midge
Mary, Mungo and Midge is a British animated children's television series, created by John Ryan and produced by the BBC in 1969.The show featured the adventures of a girl called Mary, her dog Mungo, and her pet mouse Midge, who lived in a tower block in a busy town. BBC newsreader Richard Baker...

, a children's cartoon produced by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 in 1969 and Teddy Edward
Teddy Edward
Teddy Edward is a British television series for children. It was based on the books by Patrick and Mollie Matthews, about the travels of a teddy bear. The series of 13 episodes was transmitted in 1973, but often repeated until 1980....

for the BBC in 1973 as well as Prokofiev's composition for children Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf , Op. 67, is a composition written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 in the USSR. It is a children's story , spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra....

. On radio he presented Baker's Dozen, Start the Week
Start the Week
Start the Week is a discussion programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor Andrew Marr...

on Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 from April 1970 until 1987, Mozart and the long-running Your Hundred Best Tunes
Your Hundred Best Tunes
Your Hundred Best Tunes was a long-running BBC radio music programme, always broadcast on Sunday evenings, which presented popular works which were mostly classical excerpts, choral works, opera and ballads. The hundred tunes which made up the playlist were initially selected by the creator and...

for BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...

 on Sunday nights, taking over from Alan Keith
Alan Keith
Alan Keith OBE was a British actor, disc jockey and radio presenter, noted for being the longest serving and oldest presenter on British radio, at the time of his death aged 94....

, who died in 2003, before retiring in January 2007 when the programme ended.

External links

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