
When I was growing up Thursday night was generally a football free night, no training and no Sportsnight with Coleman - so after tea, television for the next hour and a half consisted of Nationwide, Tomorrows World and Top Of The Pops.
Tomorrow's World was fronted by Raymond Baxter who died yesterday and James Burke. Baxter was BBC of the old school, along with Huw Wheldon, Billy Cotton and David Attenborough - the sort of personality who believed that if the Corporation said something it was beyond contestation.
I found him, like my old Geography teacher, slightly scary, he wore jackets with elbow patches, spoke in that BBC RP style and you could imagine him in his RAF days speaking to his comrades about "downing a Jerry in the Channel just of Dover."
Still, like that old Geography teacher he was able to present the facts in a clear, concise manner that made you enthusiastic about science or pseudo-science for half an hour one evening a week.
2 comments:
We may criticise some of the past's television and radio and we have come a long way but I'm not sure that we have always benefited by what we are served up these days.
I seem to remember that Raymond was sacked from Tomorrow's World because he did some advertising on commercial television but then again they even sacked Percy Thrower the Blue Peter gardener for a similar offence.
Its strange how certain names evoke so many memories and take you back.
For me, at least, Raymond Baxter and Tomorrows World go together like John Noakes and Blue Peter.
R.I.P.
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