Everything about Gerald Priestland totally explained
Gerald Francis Priestland (
26 February 1927 -
20 June 1991) was a news correspondent and newsreader for the
BBC.
Early work
Priestland began his work at the BBC with a six-month spell writing obituary pieces for broadcast news. Indeed, he even jokingly wrote his own obituary shortly before leaving the job for a post as a sub-editor in the news gathering operation. In
1954, he became the youngest person (at 26 years) to work as a BBC foreign correspondent, having been sent by the controversial Editor of News,
Tahu Hole, to the BBC's office in New Delhi. Between
1958 and
1961, Priestland was relocated to
Washington DC where he covered, among other things, the successful election of
John F Kennedy. Following this, he most of the next four years as the BBC's
Middle East correspondent, before requesting a transfer back to
London as a television newsreader.
BBC2 opening night
Possibly Priestland's best known news broadcast occurred on the opening night of the
BBC2 channel (Monday
20 April 1964). He had the onerous and unexpected task of anchoring the evening's transmission from the newsroom at
Alexandra Palace as a consequence of an extensive power failure across London. The channel's output that evening was restricted to repeated readings of the news and apologies for the loss of normal service and only lasted for about three hours.
Later life and work
During the late 1960s, Priestland was back in the
USA as chief American correspondent where he covered such events as the assassination of
Martin Luther King and the outraged response of students to the
Vietnam War. He returned to
England at the end of the decade but his broadcasting duties were interrupted when he suffered a
nervous breakdown. In the course of his recovery, Priestland became a devoted
Quaker, despite having been a confirmed
atheist in his youth. From the 1970s onward, he became increasingly involved in religious broadcasting and was the BBC's religious affairs correspondent from
1977 to
1982. During this period, he reported on both
Papal elections of
1978 and introduced a Saturday morning programme on
BBC Radio 4 entitled
Yours Faithfully. He gave the
1982 Swarthmore Lecture entitled,
Reasonable Uncertainty: a Quaker approach to doctrine. Priestland published his autobiography,
Something Understood, in
1986, a work which he hastily altered before publication to express his true feelings about
Tahu Hole, who had recently died: "
He was a monster in every sense."
Priestland participated in a number of television and radio programmes for both the BBC and
ITV until his death in
1991. After his death he received the rare honour (shared with
John Reith,
Huw Wheldon and
Richard Dimbleby) of having a series of annually broadcast lectures named in his honour.
Gerald Priestland expressed his love of
Cornwall in
Postscript: with love to Penwith, published after his death.
Sources
- Leonard Miall, Inside the BBC - British Broadcasting Characters: p.215-220. ISBN 0-297-81328-5
-
Books by Gerald Priestland
America, the changing nation (1968)
Frying tonight. The saga of fish and chips (1972)
The future of violence (1974)
The dilemmas of journalism : speaking for myself (1979)
West of Hayle River: (with Sylvia Priestland) (1980), new edition 1992 as Priestlands' Cornwall
Priestland's progress : one man's search for Christianity now (1981)
Coming home : an introduction to the Quakers (1981)
Reasonable uncertainty : a Quaker approach to doctrine (Swarthmore Lecture)(1982)
Priestland : right and wrong (1983)
Who needs the church? : the 1982 Barclay Lectures (1983)
The case against God (1984)
Something understood : an autobiography (1986)
The unquiet suitcase : Priestland at sixty (1988)
Postscript: with love to Penwith: two essays in Cornish History; with a foreword by Sylvia Priestland (1992)
My pilgrim way : late writings; edited by Roger Toulmin (1993)
Three volumes of the Yours faithfully collected radio talks
Further Information
Get more info on 'Gerald Priestland'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://gerald_priestland.totallyexplained.com">Gerald Priestland Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
