Forum for former BBC staff

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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> Notices, obituaries and tributes >> Stephen Jessel http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1742524363 Message started by JohnW on Mar 21^st, 2025, 2:33am

Title: Stephen Jessel
Post by JohnW on Mar 21^st, 2025, 2:33am

The journalist Stephen Jessel died on 7 March 2025.

Born in Burnham, Buckinghamshire on 9 August 1943, Stephen was the son of Robert Jessel, defence correspondent of The Times, and Penelope (nee Blackwell) of the renowned Oxford publisher-bookshop family, a lecturer in social administration at Plater College, Oxford, and active in national Liberal party politics.

Stephen attended the Dragon school in Oxford, then on to Shrewsbury school and Balliol College, Oxford (1961-65), where he studied classics.
He joined The Times where he started as a general news reporter, later becoming education correspondent. It was there that he met Jane Marshall, whom he married in 1970. He moved to the BBC in 1972, first as a radio reporter and later as presenter of 'Newsdesk' and "The World Tonight".
He was the BBC's education correspondent during Margaret Thatcher’s 1970-74 spell as education minister.

Stephen’s first foreign posting in 1977 was to Paris, which was where he made his home from then on, apart from his professional excursions to Beijing (1981-84), to Brussels for three years and then, after a brief spell in Washington back to Paris in 1997. Although Paris was his home, Stephen was no besotted Francophile - his love and knowledge of the French language was profound. He viewed France and the French with affectionate suspicion.

Stephen was one of the finest exponents of 'From Our Own Correspondent', the weekly showcase of five-minute overseas essays on Radio 4 and the World Service, in which the correspondent has a chance to breathe, freed from the shackles of attempted impartiality, live broadcasting and the “Who, what, where, when, why?”. Indeed, FOOC best traces his story, from Paris to Beijing to Brussels and back to Paris in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Stephen and Jane loved to travel, especially to east Asia. He was involved in a traffic accident in Turkey in 2013, after which his health deteriorated.

He is survived by Jane and Miranda, by his two grandchildren, Eleanor and Franklin, and by his brother David.