[Swprograms] OT: Peter Donaldson of BBC Radio 4 retired

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

I know some of this list do listen to BBC Radio 4, Mr
Donovan has written an interesting piece about the BBC
retiring a well respected newsreader and the quality
of a news announcers voice, one that I have heard most
every day for 32 years. He has been part of my day
just like long time work colleagues or neighbours. 

Mike

Peter Donaldson of BBC Radio 4 will be heard for the
last time on Friday (July 1), which is a source of
great sadness I think. I don't know if he has other
fans on this list but I
expect so. The last time as a staffer, that is. But,
as you can see from this
piece I did for the Sunday Times two days ago, he does
not yet have any contract
to return as a freelance...

Peter Donaldson has been reading the news on Radio 4
for 32 years, and it is a
shock to discover that after this week we may never
hear him again. I hope and
pray that we do, and if enough listeners ask for him
back perhaps the BBC will
relent. "I will be doing the Today programme on
Friday", he tells me, "and am
then on leave until my 60th birthday on August 23, at
which point I am being
retired. I was hoping for a contract of some kind to
take me nearer to normal
retirement age, but no contract is on offer - I assume
because of what's going
on here."

The BBC has every right, of course, to make its
employees retire at 60 (and is
also, as Donaldson alludes to, trying to cut more than
3,000 posts). That is its
policy. However, it does from time to time make
exceptions: James Moir, for
example, was allowed to carry on as controller of
Radio 2 until he was 62.
Plenty of other luminaries are on freelance contracts,
such as John Simpson and
John Humphrys, and so have been allowed to continue
beyond 60 because the
retirement age that is mandatory for staffers does not
apply to them.

Moir, though, was a company man through and through,
loyal to the BBC in every
respect. Donaldson is much more irreverent. Indeed, he
was so disenchanted with
his bosses in 2003 that he wrote to the BBC's in-house
journal, Ariel, to reveal
that he had thrown Greg Dyke's latest mission
statement in the wastepaper bin,
hardly the most diplomatic move that Radio 4's then
chief announcer (he
relinquished that role eight months later) could have
made. "As an old colonial
- born in Egypt and living abroad until I was 14 -
I've never been p c and the
Beeb is trying to become ever more so", he says. "But
I don't want to knock.
I've had a great time here with a very good bunch of
people."

It would be a mistake if the BBC were to punish him
for his occasional
disrespectful remark and never let him darken their
doors again. He is the grit
in the corporate oyster, the equivalent of the Labour
rebel at Westminster who
loves his party but despairs of those now leading it -
and those people are
often held up to be heroes. In any case, irrespective
of his views on the
corporation, he is a wonderful announcer and Radio 4
would be mad to cast him
aside. His voice is not the sepulchral mahogany of
Brian Perkins (the one
lampooned by Dead Ringers) or the full dairy milk of
Charlotte Green. It is a
polished and fragrant rosewood, with elegant cadences
and a a certain
good-humoured humanity.

He admits, because he is just as critical of himself
as his bosses, that he does
sometimes stumble over the words. On the Today
programme, he once called the
Daily Telegraph the "Daily Torygraph". "It was my
slip, not a typo. I also said
'In the Shitty - City - share prices have plummeted'
and referred to Bill
Clinton meeting Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the
lawn not of the White
House but the White Horse, because that's my local
pub."

Donaldson should write his memoirs: with his knowledge
of Radio 4 and the BBC
more generally, and his wit, they would sell well.
And, just as Perkins is still
being heard as a freelance two years after he too had
to retire, let us hope
that avenue will also be open to Donaldson. The
disappearance of his voice would
impoverish the airwaves.

(Paul Donovan, uk-radio-listeners Yahoo group)


		
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