Raymont, Tony

Tony was a BBC Midlands newsreader (1957) and a BBC Radio Light Programme/Home Service/Third Programme announcer (1958 – 1962, 1964 – 1965). He presented BBC regional TV’s Town and Around (1960). He was also a BBC TV out-of-vision network announcer (1966).

Correspondence

Paul R. Jackson corresponded with Tony in April 1987 about his career:

“Your letter reached me six days after my ‘early retirement’ – redundancy, actually, but one that I accepted since the alternative would have been to go back to London again for the last two years of my full BBC career!

“I joined the BBC in 1949 as a clerk in the salaries department in London, then a studio manager in Belfast.

“I joined the Midland region in 1953 as an announcer and having worked on various other jobs in Birmingham (radio OB producer and radio drama producer) and when we began regional TV news in 1957, I read the very first 10-minute bulletin (head and shoulders direct to camera, no teleprompt, but occasional film inserts unseen before live transmission and injected from Alexandra Palace to come up on regional screen on a precise time cue!

“Eventually, of course, this humble beginning expanded itself into Midlands Today on whose 25th anniversary about two years ago, they invited me back to read the news for them in black and white!

“My fellow TV newsreaders were Edmund Marshall and the late Bill Hartley of Motoring and the Motorist fame. The latter were not announcers as such – i.e. they were not on the formal Presentation staff. That department was headed by Christopher Stagg as senior announcer and in my time in Birmingham Presentation the others at various times were Bernadette Hodgson, David Frankham, Dick Maddock, John Hobday and from time-to-time on holiday relief – Victor Hallam, Michael Baguley (N. Ireland), Brian Sharpe, Alan Newman, Jimmy Kingsbury and a few others.

“In about 1958, I went to domestic presentation in London working mainly on the Light Programme – various shows of ‘my own’ (i.e. the Radio Times billed me as presenter) and included Melody Hour, Mid-day Melody Hour, Breakfast Special, As You Were, Friday Night Is Music Night (Seaside Night toured during the summer months), Top of the Pops (deputising for David Jacobs).

“I also worked on the BBC Home Service as part of the regular team of newsreaders and did continuity duties as well. Incidentally, the Home Service newsreaders used to go out to AP to newsread in-vision for the south east opt-out news magazine called Town and Around as well, and I was one of them.

“I worked occasionally for Third but was never very happy with them – the programmes were awfully boring and esoteric – and, I suspect, they found me too flippant for their liking too!

“I left radio presentation in late-1962, to go on secondment to the Uganda government as head of national programmes and broadcasting advisor until 1964. On return I kicked around as a ‘resettlement case’ for a bit before returning to domestic radio presentation, doing much the same as before.

“About 1965, I think it was, I went off on an attachment to TV Presentation. This was supposed to be for three months but it went on for ages. I’d really gone to learn the network co-ordinator/editor side of the business, but I ended up in front of microphones – narrating BBC Two and occasionally BBC One as well, and doing OoV work for Late-Night Line-Up, Europa and others. Network announcers were out-of-vision by the way.

“I was appointed presentation organiser for the south and west region based in Bristol from late-1966/early 1967. The announcers who were there at the time – some appointed by me – were: Douglas Leach, Douglas Vaughan, Donald Heighway and Mike Dornan. Reliefs from other places included Ronnie Short (a local schoolmaster), Meryl O’Keeffe, Jan Leeming, Laurence Reeves-Jones (vocal studio manager from Bush House), Clive Ray and Adrian Cairns.

“Bristol old presentation – again out-of-vision, save for those of us like myself, who read news in-vision for Points West – folded with the reorganisation of broadcasting in the 1970s and I and my colleagues in the department were all redundant and resettlement cases again.

“I ended up back in Brum as assistant to controller English regions, Pat Beech (who was in turn succeeded by John Grist and Mike Alder). However, there were enough folks around in Brum who remembered what I had been for them to use me from time-to-time for announcing plays, features, concerts etc, so I managed to keep my hand in and indeed hope so in formal retirement on a freelance basis.”

Personal information

Clips of Tony on The TV Room

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Acknowledgements