Annals of Journalism 5: Reginald Bosanquet

For anyone interested in the history of television news, Reginald Bosanquet's Let's Get Through Wednesday (1980) is an essential text.

Bosanquet (above), Britain's highest profile newsreader in the mid-1970s, was part of ITN's top double act, alongside Anna Ford. 'Reggie', as he was universally known, had been at ITN since its founding, and rose through the ranks as a reporter, before anchoring News at Ten, the flagship news programme. He died of cancer, aged 51, in 1984.

Among Bosanquet's memories is his live interview with the yachtsman John Ridgeway after he returned to Britain, having dropped out of a single-handed round-the-world race:

The viewers were filled in about the background of the race and then I asked him: "Why did you pull out?"

"Damage to the boat."

"How did that happen?"

"At the start, when I was setting off from Portsmouth harbour another boat bumped into me."

"Which boat was that?"

"Yours. The ITN camera boat."

Bosanquet also offers an interesting aside about the consequences of the change from black-and-white to colour television:

Back in the days of black-and-white television the two bad colours to wear were precisely those - black, because it absorbs light, and white, because, because light bounces off it. So we never wore white shirts. Pale blue was settled on as the best colour.

But then in 1970, when we went into colour, blue turned out to be the shade which one must not wear on television.

There is a highly technical reason for this - known as Chromakey - but I will try to explain it simply. At the news desks there is a plain background behind on to which are projected various pictures and images tying in with what is being read. What activates this back projection is the colour blue. So, if you wear a blue shirt, you are likely to get the Houses of Parliament displayed on your chest.

Back in 1970 when blue was 'out', that meant I was lumbered with drawers full of blue shirts from the black-and-white days, and for a long time I was going round saying to any man I met: 'Would you like a blue shirt, hardly worn, 16 1/2 collar?' My youngest daughter, the then infant Delilah, came to my rescue by wearing some of them with the collars taken off as nightdresses.

Bosanquet was widely believed to drink before going on air, a reputation that led to his Private Eye name, Reginald Beaujolais.

In his book, he doesn't address that claim, but admits to liking a drink. When a camera crew arrived at his flat at ten in the morning and were surprised to find him drinking champagne, he was indignant at their response. They reported the incident "as though it was something terrible", he recounts, but "apart from at weddings, when else does one drink champagne except at breakfast?"

The previous Annals of Journalism, on Ladybird books, is here.

See life behind the scenes of today's television news, with Fiona Bruce, here.