Forum for former BBC staff

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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> Notices, obituaries and tributes >> Ken Sykora http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1142544544 Message started by Forum Admin on Mar 16^th, 2006, 9:30pm

Title: Ken Sykora
Post by Forum Admin on Mar 16^th, 2006, 9:30pm

This is taken from the Daily Telegraph:

Ken Sykora
(Filed: 16/03/2006)

Ken Sykora, who died on March 7 aged 82, was one of Britain's most popular radio personalities, making regular appearances on all the BBC's networks.

A man of many parts, Sykora worked variously as a solo guitarist, presenter and interviewer. He also wrote for magazines, not only in the music press but also for educational, travel, and food and wine journals. He composed music for films and for his own band.

Ken Sykora was born in London on April 13 1923 to the stepdaughter of a Swiss-German count who had eloped with a Czech cavalry officer to escape her disapproving parents, a fact which came to light only as a result of Sykora's guest appearance on Roy Plomley's Desert Island Discs. Sykora had been unable to answer the question of why his parents had come to London, and an anonymous listener wrote to the programme with the explanation. He later discovered that the letter came from one of his two older sisters, Phyllis. Although there had been a full family reconciliation decades earlier, she had never previously mentioned the story to Ken to spare their mother any embarrassment.

Sykora read Geography at Cambridge, where he was also the organiser of the CUBS (Cambridge University Band Society). He then took a Science degree at the LSE, where he was elected President of the Union as well as captain of the London University football team.

During the war he served as an intelligence officer with the Chindits in the Far East. On his return, he recovered from malaria and a failed early marriage to teach in the East End of London, before becoming a lecturer at the LSE and the College for Distributive Trades.

Sykora met his second wife, Helen, on a blind date, but it was an inauspicious start. He thought she was spoiled; she thought he was a boring academic bachelor with a glass eye (early contact lenses did the wearer no favours). She stayed on out of politeness, but when he invited her along to listen to him play at a local club, she found herself left abandoned in a corner with only a drink to keep her company. Feeling that this was not the way to treat the lead singer at Murray's Cabaret Club, she was on the point of leaving when Sykora started to play the guitar. Entranced, she stayed on. They subsequently married, their wedding photograph featuring on the front page of Melody Maker.

Music remained an all-consuming passion for Sykora. He led own band in the 1950s, performing with Ted Heath at the London Palladium and with Geraldo at the old Stoll Theatre, and was voted Britain's Top Guitarist five years running in Melody Maker's readers' polls.

Music led him into broadcasting, and involvement in the creation of a wide range of popular radio programmes. First he presented and played on Jazz Club and At the Jazz Band Ball. He devised, presented and performed on the Guitar Club and Stringalong series. Other programmes with the Sykora stamp included Those Record Years, Album Time, LP Parade, Big Band Sound, and Radio Three's Jazz Digest. He also wrote and presented Radio One's first Plain Musician's Guide to the History of Pop.

One of his favourite programmes, which he also devised and presented for BBC Radio 2, was the autobiographical series Be My Guest, on which he talked to celebrity guests - examples included Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Segovia, Isaac Stern, Count Basie and Gloria Swanson - about their lives.

Sykora helped to devise and was the original presenter on Roundabout (the prototype daily music and chat show on the old Light Programme). He also contributed to Today, Housewives' Choice, Radio Newsreel, Holiday Hour (along with Cliff Michelmore) and Home This Afternoon, and took part in the first experimental stereo broadcasts and the first use of radio cars on location.

He was still working as a regular host on You and Yours and Start the Week when, in the 1970s, he and his family decided to fulfil an ambition to move to Scotland to run the Colintraive Hotel on the Kyles of Bute. It proved a very demanding life, particularly as the hotel had one of the few Sunday licences in the area at that period. Between two and six on the Sabbath afternoon was the only free time available for any private family life, and even this was frequently interrupted by a knock on the door and a request for afternoon tea from a group of tourists. It was no surprise when the hotel was sold five years later.

Sykora continued to present programmes for the BBC's (pre-Radio Scotland) Scottish service. He produced regular weekly music shows for Radio Clyde from its inception in 1974, notably Serendipity with Sykora. He later served as head of features at the station for four years.

After the launch of the new BBC Radio Scotland in 1978, Sykora won a Glenfiddich Award for Best Radio Programme for Eater's Digest, a series that celebrated local food producers long before today's cult of the celebrity chef.

Sykora's gift was to deliver a spread of fact and insight on music, people, places and events, all presented in a warm, inclusive style he had made his own.

In his final years he liked nothing better than to watch the ever-changing waters of Loch Long lap on the foreshore opposite his house at Blairmore, and to soak up the music of Django Reinhardt and other guitarists.

Ken Sykora's wife, Helen, predeceased him in 1997. He is survived by his daughter and two sons.

Title: Re: Ken Sykora
Post by Forum Admin on Mar 24^th, 2006, 3:07pm

This is taken from The Guardian:

Ken Sykora
Jazz guitarist and versatile presenter of music on BBC radio
by Dennis Barker
Friday March 24, 2006

Ken Sykora, who has died aged 82, was a poetic guitarist, adaptable jazz composer for radio and his own band, broadcaster, chef and gentlemanly individualist who avoided any suggestion of show-biz flamboyance. He was presenter of BBC radio's Jazz Club and At the Jazz Band Ball, among many other programmes.

He was born in London but his mother was the stepdaughter of a Swiss-German count who had married a Czech cavalry officer after eloping with him. London was a natural refuge, though Ken knew nothing of this background until years later, when he appeared on Desert Island Discs and one of his two older sisters wrote to tell him.

At Cambridge University, where he read geography, he was organiser of the band society; he then took an economics degree at the London School of Economics, where he was captain of the London University football team and president of the Union. An intelligence officer with the Chindits in the Far East during the second world war, on his return he began teaching in the East End of London and then lecturing at the LSE and the College of Distributive Trades.

But music, especially jazz, remained a passion. In the 1950s, when he was leading his own band, he appeared at the London Palladium with Ted Heath and at the Stoll Theatre with Geraldo. For five successive years in the 1950s, he was voted Britain's top guitarist by readers of Melody Maker.

He met his second wife, Helen Grant, lead singer at Murray's Cabaret Club, on a blind date, during which she thought he was a dull academic until he started playing his guitar.

The couple moved to Suffolk, though Ken continued to commute to London. He devised, performed in and presented the Guitar Club - a programme whose listeners included Paul McCartney - and the Stringalong radio programmes, just as he had been the original presenter on Roundabout, a music and chat show on what was then the BBC Light Programme, for which presenters were to include Richard Murdoch, Alan Dell and David Jacobs.

For BBC Radio 2, he devised and presented the series Be My Guest, in which he interviewed famous guests, mostly with musical associations, among them Count Basie, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, the guitarist Segovia, the violinist Isaac Stern and the actor Gloria Swanson.

Sykora's hectic life was also to include Big Band Sound, Those Record Years, Album Time, LP Parade, and Jazz Digest for BBC Radio 3. For Radio 1, he presented the Plain Musician's Guide to the History of Pop. He was a contributor to Today, Housewives' Choice, Radio Newsreel, Home This Afternoon, You and Yours, Start the Week and Holiday Hour.

Then the family decided to move to Scotland, where his wife, the daughter of Hannah Grant, Scotland's first woman chef, had been born. In the 1970s they ran the Colintraive Hotel on the Kyles of Bute. Sykora enjoyed being the chef, using local produce such as hare, venison and rabbit, and earning himself the nickname The Big King because of his legendary powsowdie soup with two sheep's heads.

After five years, the hotel was sold, and he moved to a house in Blairmore. He went on presenting and producing programmes for what was then the BBC Scottish service. When Radio Clyde was launched in 1974, the programmes he produced included Serendipity with Sykora; he later took over as head of features for four years. In 1978, BBC Radio Scotland went on the air and later Sykora won the Glenfiddich award for best radio programme for Eater's Digest, a regular programme started in the 1980s which dealt with the quality of local food producers; Sykora travelled all over Scotland researching.

Helen died in 1997. He is survived by his sons, Duncan and Alistair, and a daughter, Alison.

· Ken Sykora, guitarist, composer, radio presenter and producer, born April 13 1923; died March 7 2006.