- Gerald Priestland
Gerald Francis Priestland (
26 February 1927 -20 June 1991 ) was a news correspondent and newsreader for theBBC .Early life and work
Gerald Priestland was educated at
Charterhouse andNew College Oxford . He began his work at the BBC with a six-month spell writing obituary pieces for broadcast news. Indeed, he even jokingly wrote his own obituary shortly before leaving the job for a post as a sub-editor in the news gathering operation. In 1954, he became the youngest person (at 26 years) to work as a BBC foreign correspondent, having been sent by the controversial Editor of News,Tahu Hole , to the BBC's office in New Delhi. Between 1958 and 1961, Priestland was relocated toWashington DC where he covered, among other things, the successful election ofJohn F Kennedy . Following this, he most of the next four years as the BBC'sMiddle East correspondent, before requesting a transfer back toLondon as a television newsreader.BBC2 opening night
Possibly Priestland's best known news broadcast occurred on the opening night of the
BBC2 channel (Monday20 April 1964 ). He had the onerous and unexpected task of anchoring the evening's transmission from the newsroom atAlexandra Palace as a consequence of an extensive power failure across London. The channel's output that evening was restricted to repeated readings of the news and apologies for the loss of normal service and only lasted for about three hours.Later life and work
During the late 1960s, Priestland was back in the
USA as chief American correspondent where he covered such events as the assassination ofMartin Luther King and the outraged response of students to theVietnam War . He returned toEngland at the end of the decade but his broadcasting duties were interrupted when he suffered anervous breakdown . In the course of his recovery, Priestland became a devotedQuaker , despite having been a confirmedatheist in his youth. From the 1970s onward, he became increasingly involved in religious broadcasting and was the BBC's religious affairs correspondent from 1977 to 1982. His "Priestland's Postbag" was a controversial part ofTerry Wogan 's BBC breakfast programme, drawing both praise and criticism. During this period, he reported on both Papal elections of 1978 and introduced a Saturday morning programme onBBC Radio 4 entitled "Yours Faithfully". He gave the 1982Swarthmore Lecture entitled, "Reasonable Uncertainty: a Quaker approach to doctrine". Priestland published his autobiography, "Something Understood", in 1986, a work which he hastily altered before publication to express his true feelings aboutTahu Hole , who had recently died: "He was a monster in every sense."Priestland participated in a number of television and radio programmes for both the BBC and
ITV until his death in 1991. After his death he received the rare honour (shared withJohn Reith ,Huw Wheldon andRichard Dimbleby ) of having a series of annually broadcast lectures named in his honour.Gerald Priestland expressed his love of
Cornwall in "Postscript: with love toPenwith ", published after his death.ources
*
Leonard Miall , "Inside the BBC - British Broadcasting Characters": p.215-220. ISBN 0-297-81328-5
* cite book
last = Priestland
first = Gerald
authorlink = Gerald Priestland
editor=
title = Postscript: with love to Penwith: two essays in Cornish History; with a foreword by Sylvia Priestland
series=Patten People, No.5
publisher= The Patten Press
location = Newmill, Hayle, Cornwall
date= 1992
id=ISBN 1-872229-02-6Books by Gerald Priestland
* America, the changing nation (1968)
* Frying tonight. The saga of fish and chips (1972)
* The future of violence (1974)
* The dilemmas of journalism : speaking for myself (1979)
* West of Hayle River: (with Sylvia Priestland) (1980), new edition 1992 as Priestlands' Cornwall
* Priestland's progress : one man's search for Christianity now (1981)
* Coming home : an introduction to the Quakers (1981)
* Reasonable uncertainty : a Quaker approach to doctrine (Swarthmore Lecture)(1982)
* Priestland : right and wrong (1983)
* Who needs the church? : the 1982 Barclay Lectures (1983)
* The case against God (1984)
* Something understood : an autobiography (1986)
* The unquiet suitcase : Priestland at sixty (1988)
* Postscript: with love to Penwith: two essays in Cornish History; with a foreword by Sylvia Priestland (1992)
* My pilgrim way : late writings; edited by Roger Toulmin (1993)
* Three volumes of the "Yours faithfully" collected radio talksExternal links
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3585041.stm The launch night that never was] - the BBC's own account of their attempts to maintain transmission during the power failure, featuring recorded footage of Gerald Priestland's efforts
* George Wedell, "Priestland, Gerald Francis (1927–1991)", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", (2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/49934] , accessed 9 Nov 2006
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