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You may already know that the journalist and broadcaster, Mark Whittaker, who worked for the BBC at Radio WM in the 80s and returned to Pebble Mill as a presenter of Costing the Earth in the 90s has died after a short illness. He leaves a wife, Jane Stimpson, who also worked at the Mill in the 80s, and two children.
Mark was a know it all in the nicest possible way. He had a huge brain full of stuff that could be deployed at work and at play. As I’ve reflected elsewhere I never lost a pub quiz with him and have never won one without him.
There is a very touching tribute to him on the Ariel page written by his colleagues on BBC World Service World Business Report where he’d been working for the last few years.
Richard Uridge
Here is the link to the article in Ariel about Mark: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/29463075
Below is an excerpt from the article:
“World Service presenter Mark Whittaker has died suddenly of cancer.
One of the presenters of World Business Report and Business Matters, he had finished his last shift at the BBC about a month ago, on August 27.
He was diagnosed with cancer only three weeks before his death on October 1. He leaves behind two children and his wife Jane.
‘Mark was a radio genius who not only had brilliant ideas, but relentlessly executed them to perfection,’ said Martin Webber, editor of BBC World Service business news in an email to World Service staff.
‘We marvelled as he crafted beautiful scripts and then drew on his vast memory of music and sound, to turn a dull topic into a radio delight.
‘He regularly quietly re-edited interviews himself when the producer failed to do a perfect job.
His interviews connected effortlessly with the people he spoke to wherever they were in the world”
‘When Business Matters started with an hour-long format, he thrived doing the extended live interviews that the programme demanded. On location in India and Japan in the past year, he showed us all what could be achieved.”
The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:
Alex Fraser: ‘He was a lovely, lovely man’
Sue Welch: ‘Such a lovely man with a wicked sense of humour.’
Pete Simpkin: ‘Well said all of the above…in addition Mark seemed to want to break down the barriers of the time between news and general programme staff and he planted seeds that bore spectacular fruit.’
Lorraine Randell: ‘I worked with Mark in Radio WM’s News Room and I reiterate everything that has been said…one of the nicest people I have ever worked with.’
