....

he led an interesting (obviously to me!) and eventful life....

abandoned as a 3yr old in London, he was adopted by a couple in Gillingham in the 20's. They went on to have a further 3 boys of their own so my dad was like the oldest brother. At 14 he lied about his age and joined the navy and went to war. He served 22 years, won 9 medals, was the only British serviceman at Pearl Harbour witnessing first hand kamakazi attacks. He was torpedoed twice, the second time one of only 22 survivors out of 300 crew. He ended up with a commission and a Leutenant Commander.

After the war he bacame an engineer ad Redifusion TV in London. ITV were just starting up and he was given the chance to go to an outpost called Norwich to help start a local ITV company called Anglia. He married my mum who was a make up artist and both moved to Norwich where they had 3 kids (i'm the youngest!) - over the next 25 years he worked at Anglia rising to be Head of Presentation, and was the boss of local tv presenters such as Michael Speake, Helen McDermott, Christine Webber, Patrick Anthony. As a kid he used to take me and my school mates into the studio's to watch filming and meet the presenters!

He pioneered the first ever TV Charity "ITV Telethon" run by Anglia in 1988. In the late 80's he and Sir David Frost (NCFC Fan!) pioneered Britains first BreaKfast TV, TVAM and it was my dad (sadly in my opinion!) responsible for giving one of his typists, Ulrika Jonson, her first screen test! It was his decision to allow her to goto Met College and study to become a weather presenter! (apparently she mentions him in one of her books, but as i cant stand her, never read it!)

Whilst most of this was going on he was OC Swanton Morley Air Cadets, led by example and did a parachute jump in his 50's - when asked why, he quoted that he would never ask one of his boys to do something he wasnt prepaired to do himself!!!!

He was the main reason I joined the services at 17... he was a real inspitration! He was also responsible for taking me to carrow road for the fiurst time, and took me when norwich lost to liverpool 5-3 as one of my first games! He was a good all round egg!

Posted By: Cheltenham_Canary, Sep 23, 10:20:03