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 Friday听听听16:00-16:30
Sunday听20:30-21:00听(rpt)
Radio 4's weekly obituaries programme |
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This week |
Friday听23rd听November 2007
(Rpt) Sunday听25th November听 |
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Ian Smith
Former Rhodesian prime minister who has died aged 88
Ian Smith was elected prime minister of the British colony of Rhodesia in 1965听by an overwhelming vote of the country鈥檚 quarter of a million white people.听However, he had no mandate whatsoever from the disenfranchised majority population of five million black people. He was under growing pressure from the British government to agree a transition to majority rule, but听he resolved to resist 鈥 and for fifteen years succeeded in defying world opinion until a combination of economic sanctions and a bloody guerrilla war forced him to concede.
Ian Smith was born in Southern Rhodesia, the son of a cattle dealer. He read commerce at Rhodes University in South Africa where he was also a keen sportsman. During the war, Smith served with the RAF, losing an eye and sustaining facial injuries when his Hurricane fighter crashed on take off. The plastic surgery that he underwent left him with a rather grim and frozen expression.
After the war, Smith began his political career in Rhodesia. But the defining moment came at the date and time chosen in grandiose style for their historic significance - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1965 when he made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
Matthew Bannister talks to听听Zimbabwean journalists Wilf Nbanga and Georgina Godwin听and to the former diplomat Lord Renwick听 who was Head of the Rhodesia Department at the Foreign Office in the late 1970s.
Ian Douglas Smith was born April 8th 1919. He died听November 20th 2007. |
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Verity Lambert
Television producer who has died aged 71.
Verity Lambert was one of British television鈥檚 most influential producers. She was the founding producer of Dr Who when she was the youngest and only female drama producer working at the 大象传媒. Passionate about writing, she was also responsible for overseeing Thames TV hits like Minder, Rumpole of the Bailey and Edward and Mrs Simpson. She set up her own company Cinema Verity in 1985 and went on to produce Alan Bleasdale鈥檚 award winning drama serial GBH for Channel 4.
Verity Lambert鈥檚 most high profile flop was the 大象传媒 soap Eldorado. Launched with great publicity and filmed at a specially constructed village in Spain, it was the most expensive commission the 大象传媒 had given to an independent production company. But the series was given a critical mauling and was taken off air within a year. In 2001, Verity Lambert teamed up with Joanna Lumley to produce the Cazalets, a lavish TV version of the novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard.
Matthew Bannister talks to Joanna Lumley and听the controller of 大象传媒 fiction Jane Tranter:
Verity Lambert was born November 27th 1935.听She died November 22nd 2007.
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Vernon Scannell
Poet who has died aged 85听
Vernon Scannell听deserted from the army twice. He was a keen amateur and professional boxer and listed his recreations as 鈥渄rink, learning French and loathing Tories and New Labour鈥. But it is for his poetry that Vernon Scannell will be remembered. He said that his major themes were 鈥渧iolence, the experience of war and the sense of danger which is part of the climate of our times.鈥 He also wrote a number of novels and several volumes of autobiography.
Vernon Scannell was born into a poor family in Lincolnshire where his father scraped a living as a photographer. At the age of 11 Vernon took up boxing, reaching the finals of the British Schoolboy Championships. Leaving school at 14, Vernon took a job as a clerk in a firm of accountants. His teenage years were divided between his twin passions 鈥 boxing and literature - with his enthusiasm for poetry kindled by the Methuen Anthology of Modern Verse.
Matthew Bannister talks to the writer and teacher Dennis Butts and to an early friend of Vernon Scannell, the painter and designer Cliff Holden.
Vernon Scannell was born January 23rd 1922. He died November 16th 2007.
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Professor Arthur Kornberg
Nobel prize winning biochemist, who has died aged 89.
Professor Arthur Kornberg was one of the leading biochemists of the twentieth century. In 1959 he was awarded the Nobel prize for his pioneering research on DNA. Arthur Kornberg was born in New York and worked in his father鈥檚 hardware store from the age of nine. He went to the City College of New York where he gained the best science degree of the year in 1937. Arthur went on to qualify as a doctor and served as a medic in the US Navy before beginning an academic career. Much of his work was carried out at the biochemistry department of Stanford University where he was appointed Professor in 1969 and Professor Emeritus on his retirement nearly twenty years later.
Matthew Bannister talks to Professor Kornberg鈥檚 son Roger who was also awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006 for chemistry.听
Professor Arthur Kornberg was born on March 3rd 1918. He died on October 26th 2007. |
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