Brian Redhead
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Brian Redhead (28 December 1929 - 23 January 1994) was a British author, journalist and broadcaster. He was probably best known as a co-presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 which he worked on from 1975 until 1993, shortly before his death. He was a great lover and promoter of the city of Manchester and the North West in general, where he lived and worked for many years.
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[edit] Biography
Redhead was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was the only child of Ernest Leonard Redhead, a silk screen printer and advertising agent, and his wife, Janet Crossley (née Fairley).[1] He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle. After National Service, he read history at Downing College, Cambridge.
His career in journalism started in 1954 as a journalist for the Manchester Guardian newspaper. He married his wife, Jean Salmon (known as Jenni) on 19 June 1954. They had four children - two sons, Stephen and James, and twins, Annabel (known as Abby) and William.
He became northern editor of The Guardian in 1965, and editor of the Manchester Evening News in 1969. After being passed over for the editorship of The Guardian in favour of Peter Preston in 1975, he left to join the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, replacing Robert Robinson. He was already an experienced broadcaster, having presented Points North on television, and chaired the Saturday night Radio 4 topical conversation programme A Word In Edgeways for many years.
He formed a partnership with fellow Today presenter John Timpson which lasted for over 10 years. Redhead and Timpson had a series of running jokes on the programme, including the mythical organisations "The Friends Of The M6" (long-suffering motorists trapped in its frequent traffic jams) and "The League Of Pear-Shaped men" (of which he and Timpson were the principal members).
During his time on the Today programme, Redhead was famously accused of political bias by Conservative Chancellor Nigel Lawson, and in reply enquired "Do you think we should have a one minute silence now in this interview, one for you to apologise for daring to suggest that you know how I vote and secondly perhaps in memory of monetarism which you have now discarded." He later had a similar set-to with Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Lilley.
The death of Redhead's youngest son, William, in a car crash in France in 1982, aged 18, led him to rediscover religious faith, and he became a confirmed member of the Church of England a few months later. In the Radio 4 series The Good Book, he charted the history of the Bible. In the last years of his life, there was some speculation that after his retirement from Today he would train for ordination as an Anglican priest. He was also a strong supporter of the hospice movement, calling it "the best thing that has happened in this country since the Second World War". He became chancellor of Manchester University.
During the First Gulf War in 1991, he was a volunteer presenter on the BBC Radio 4 News FM service[2]. In 1993, his health started to fail and he was in pain on his left side and leg. He was thought to need hip surgery, but in fact had a ruptured appendix which was leaking toxins, causing liver and kidney failure and other problems. He took leave from Today in early December, expecting to return after Christmas, but never returned, dying in January 1994.
[edit] Books by Brian Redhead
- Brian Redhead Manchester - a Celebration. André Deutsch Limited, London. ISBN 0-233-98816-5
- Brian Redhead Personal Perspectives. Harper Collins Publishers January, 1996 Hardcover ISBN 0-00-638685-7
- Brian Redhead Plato to NATO: Studies on political thought. Penguin Books 23 February, 1995 ISBN 0-14-024677-0
- Brian Redhead and Kenneth McLeish (ed.), The Anti-Booklist. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981. ISBN 0-340-274476
[edit] References
- ^ Paul Donovan, ‘Redhead, Brian Leonard (1929–1994)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 29 Oct 2007
- ^ Sound Matters - Five Live - the War of Broadcasting House - a morality story
