Jayne was born in Yorkshire. She has an acting diploma from the Royal Academy of Music and a modern languages degree from Cambridge. She studied journalism at the LCP and has written for publications including Condé Nast Traveller and Good Housekeeping.
…Bacon, Jim
Jim was born in Suffolk. He was employed by the Met Office from 1968 until 1986. His career started in East Anglia at RAF stations in 1968. He later moved to Bracknell for a few years as a programmer on the Met Office supercomputer.
…Hammond, John
John was born in Bosham, West Sussex, the son of a farmer. After taking an interest in the weather from the age of four, he studied geography at the University of Salford, followed by meteorology at the University of Birmingham.
…Hailes, Anne
Anne has been working in the media all her working life. She began her broadcasting career with BBC Northern Ireland in the 1980s, contributing to radio programmes, before establishing her own sixty-minute weekly magazine, At Home with Anne Hailes. She was also involved in programmes for the BBC World Service.
…Baguley, Michael
Michael was a BBC Northern Ireland news and current affairs presenter in the 1960s and 1970s. He presented the main regional news programme in the 1960s.
…Alagiah, George
George was born in Colombo, Ceylon. His parents moved to Ghana in West Africa in 1961. He read politics at Durham University and whilst there wrote for and became editor of the student newspaper Palatinate; he was also a sabbatical officer of Durham Students’ Union.
…Peters, Andi
Born in Chelsea to Vincentian parents, Andi initially presented CITV’s Free Time (16th September – 23rd December 1988) and briefly provided the continuity links on CITV in summer 1988.
…Snagge, John
John was born in Chelsea and educated at Winchester College and Pembroke College, Oxford where he obtained a law degree. Having applied to join the British Broadcasting Company Limited in 1924 – and in the absence of a reply from the BBC – Snagge’s father, the redoubtable judge Sir Mordaunt Snagge, called on Reith’s deputy, Admiral Charles Car-Pendale, at Savoy Hill to ask what was happening. The admiral explained that a great number of people had written to the BBC, and he was having to go through 1,500 applications. “I am not interested in the other 1,499,” said Sir Mordaunt loftily. Snagge was engaged and in 1924 sent to be the assistant director of the newly opened local radio station at Stoke-on-Trent. He broadcast his first sports commentary in January 1927 (Hull City v Stoke City football match). In 1928, he moved to Savoy Hill in London to work as one of BBC Radio’s announcers, alongside Stuart Hibberd. Listeners heard his distinctive resonant voice on the Home Service (1928 – 1933, 1940 and 1944).
…Ball, Johnny
Johnny made major contributions to children’s TV over 25 years including Play School (545 editions, 1967 – 1984, and occasional appearances until 1987) and Play Away (1972 to 1980), during which time he was the principle comedy writer for the show.
…Giles, Bill
Bill was born in Dittisham, near Dartmouth in Devon. He joined the Meteorological Office at Exeter in January 1957 on leaving the Bristol College of Science and Technology. Later that year, as an 18-year-old, he was sent to Christmas Island to observe the meteorological effects of the H bomb tests and later recalled seeing the “horrendous clouds”. Bill was based in Germany as an observer with the RAF (1961 – 1963) and worked as a lecturer at the Met Office’s training college (1968 – 1970).
…Kirkwood, Carol
Carol was born in Morar. After attending Napier University in Edinburgh, where she gained a BA in Commerce, she initially joined the BBC’s secretarial reserve in London, in 1984.
…West, Laurie
Laurence John Thomas West, the son of a sailor, was brought up in Portsmouth. His ambition was to join the Navy, but when he applied as a boy he was told he was “a few days too old”. Instead, in 1924, he joined the RAF as an aircraft apprentice and was posted to RAF Cranwell as a coppersmith, an occupation which earned him the nickname ‘Knocker West’. In 1933, he applied for pilot training and was soon flying a wide variety of aircraft.
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