Pete Atkin
MV Godfather
Posts: 510
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Re: Bobby Jaye (1925-2009)
« Reply #1: 06.02.10 at 13:09 » |
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Bobby had been in a poor way for some time. I was sad that the worst of the after-Christmas weather prevented me from getting from Bristol to his funeral in Kent. Still, I think and hope that there may be a memorial event.
Bobby was the Head of what was then called Light Entertainment, Radio, when I joined as a producer in 1981. In other words, he was primarily responsible for giving me the job (my first, as one of the world's oldest unemployed school-leavers), and I shall always be grateful to him for that. His story on BBC7 about the commissioning meeting for 'After Henry', with him and Simon Brett and the Controller of Radio 4, Monica Sims, and her assistant, was actually about another programme entirely - but that was fairly typical Bobby! He was one of the last of the old school of BBC LE producers who had come from the days of Variety, and the swelling tide of what was then called 'alternative' comedy gave him a few headaches and possibly sleepless nights. But he recognised it was the way the world was going and he treated his young tyros and the rest of us (I was a bit old to be a young tyro even then) with the characteristic amused indulgence of a would-be disreputable, slightly raffish uncle. Give him his due, among other things he was the first Head of LE to take on a female producer (Jan Ravens, as it happens, later of Dead Ringers) - difficult now (with a female doing his old job) to understand what a leap that was at the time. His biggest difficulty, I suspect, was in deciding how to address her, since up to that point he'd called everybody 'Old boy.'
I look forward to the chance to raise a glass to him with some old chums.
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