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Former BBC Newsreader Richard Baker has died at the age of 93 - his on air identity had put him in the same ilk as Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougal, Robert Robinson, Richard Whitmore, and Michael "not Shakin' Stevens" Barratt.
I suppose he was before my time, but a bit of research from the Genome reveals a bit more about what he was famous for back in the 1960s and 1970s. As well as reading the news he presented on BBC Radio 2 on Sunday evenings for many years. When a DJ rapist who was also called Richard Baker had made the news as a result of being convicted of his crimes in the late 1990s, the broadcaster Baker obviously realised the similarity between his name and the fact that he played records, and at this point he referred to himself by his full name of Richard Anthony Baker, almost to avoid confusion. (At least Steve Wright didn't really bother doing that when he happened to have a namesake in Ipswich in almost similar circumstances...)
I actually thought that he passed away last year because I had read about another Richard Baker in the Obituaries column of The Stage and I naturally thought it was him as the other Baker was a similar age, but it was an actor namesake - one couldn't have been surprised however considering his age. No mention on Wikipedia or elsewhere, and so it wasn't him.
Baker was also one of the few newsreaders to have a unusual foray into children's television as a result of narrating the series Mary, Mungo, and Midge - in fact, his son James Baker did a bit of children's television presenting when he co-hosted The Wide Awake Club on TV-am along with Tommy Boyd and Arabella Warner - I don't recall Baker junior doing anything else which was a pity - he could have followed into his father's footsteps and had a successful broadcasting career.
Another huge name and face from British broadcasting made decades ago now gone.
I suppose he was before my time, but a bit of research from the Genome reveals a bit more about what he was famous for back in the 1960s and 1970s. As well as reading the news he presented on BBC Radio 2 on Sunday evenings for many years. When a DJ rapist who was also called Richard Baker had made the news as a result of being convicted of his crimes in the late 1990s, the broadcaster Baker obviously realised the similarity between his name and the fact that he played records, and at this point he referred to himself by his full name of Richard Anthony Baker, almost to avoid confusion. (At least Steve Wright didn't really bother doing that when he happened to have a namesake in Ipswich in almost similar circumstances...)
I actually thought that he passed away last year because I had read about another Richard Baker in the Obituaries column of The Stage and I naturally thought it was him as the other Baker was a similar age, but it was an actor namesake - one couldn't have been surprised however considering his age. No mention on Wikipedia or elsewhere, and so it wasn't him.
Baker was also one of the few newsreaders to have a unusual foray into children's television as a result of narrating the series Mary, Mungo, and Midge - in fact, his son James Baker did a bit of children's television presenting when he co-hosted The Wide Awake Club on TV-am along with Tommy Boyd and Arabella Warner - I don't recall Baker junior doing anything else which was a pity - he could have followed into his father's footsteps and had a successful broadcasting career.
Another huge name and face from British broadcasting made decades ago now gone.
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