Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> Notices, obituaries and tributes >> Roger Donaghy http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1332782381 Message started by Administrator on Mar 26^th, 2012, 5:20pm

Title: Roger Donaghy
Post by Administrator on Mar 26^th, 2012, 5:20pm

Roger Donaghy, a long-serving journalist in the Bush House newsroom, has died at the age of 72. He had worked in Northern Ireland and Australia before joining the WS in 1966. Funeral arrangements to follow.

Title: Re: Roger Donaghy
Post by Administrator on Mar 30^th, 2012, 8:22am

There will be a service of remembrance at Morden College, 19, St German's Place, Blackheath, SE3 0PW at 1215 on Friday 20th April. All are welcome.

Title: Re: Roger Donaghy
Post by John Brice on Apr 19^th, 2012, 6:54pm

I've just spoken to the Chaplain at Morden College and he tells me the Memorial Service is at 1330 and not 1215 as earlier reported. The cremation is at 1215, followed by the Memorial Service.

Title: Re: Roger Donaghy
Post by MVP on Apr 19^th, 2012, 11:00pm

The tribute to Roger does not appear on the link provided

Post removed. (Admin)

Title: Re: Roger Donaghy
Post by Administrator on Apr 21^st, 2012, 3:53pm

Jim Edwards provided this note on the memorial service:

The boxed seats and pews of the 17th century chapel at Morden College,
Blackheath were packed this afternoon for RD's memorial service. There was
a contingent from across the Irish Sea and other local friends but the
biggest was from Bush House; a great comfort to Rachel (Roger's wife) and Nina (daughter).

There were eulogies from Andy Whitehead and Bob Jobbins which captured with
amusement and respect the Roger we all knew.

Afterwards the comfortable clubhouse for the elderly residents of the
college felt as if it had been taken over by Bush House Club.

Title: Re: Roger Donaghy
Post by Administrator on Apr 22^nd, 2012, 8:28am

Eulogy delivered by Andrew Whitehead, Editor, BBC World Service News, at the memorial service for Roger Donaghy, Friday, April 20, 2012

Roger.

Not an unusual name. We’ve had quite a few Rogers in the World Service Newsroom, the part of the BBC that I try my best to manage.

But I hope other Rogers from the BBC will excuse me when I say that when anyone mentioned Roger, everyone knew who they meant.

After all, he’d been there longer than any of us. And in so many ways, he was the best of us.

Our longest serving journalist – by quite a few years. A BBC career that stretched back to before Sergeant Pepper. The reminder of who we are – the embodiment of our collective memory.

Something of a legend. A word so many have used about Roger in the past few weeks. A legend because of his endurance – because he enjoyed such great respect - because of who he was, always smartly turned out, tanned, fit, feinting boxing moves. With a warm smile and greeting, a glint in his eyes.

He relished good stories – our stock-in-trade – he told them well, on air and in the Club, and featured in quite a few too.

Roger already had a touch of the legend about him when I joined the Bush House Newsroom a little more than thirty years ago. From my humble vantage point at that time, the duty editors, the SDEs, the Newsroom editors – and Roger during his career took on all these roles – looked like giants. It’s a bit like going to a new school. You remember the big boys all your life – and never quite lose that sense of awe.

Certainly I and so many others learnt their journalism from Roger and his ilk. It was an exacting academy. You would hand in your draft story – and Roger would peer, look anxious, a touch annoyed; have you got the tape, he would exclaim; you would hand in the bundle of news agency copy that was the basis for your story; then the pencil would be applied, liberally, thickly; the sense of not quite making it assuaged by Roger’s kindness and encouragement, and the very evident improvement in the quality of the prose.

Roger wrote wonderfully, and quickly; he called stories enthusiastically; he loved being a Senior Duty Editor, in charge minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour of the Newsroom operation. He loved the Newsroom. He couldn’t leave it. At least, every time he left, he came back.

His last working shifts were as recently as February. Two night shifts back-to-back.

I sometimes wonder how anyone could fall in love with something as tawdry as a 24-hour Newsroom. Of course it wasn’t the place – though we all have an affection for the fourth floor at Bush House, mice and all. It was the people, the common purpose. The pride in that purpose – a big purpose, reporting the world to the world.

There is a certain symphonic majesty in the way the Newsroom rises to a big breaking story. And, in a minor key perhaps, in seeing through a quiet night with a respectable bulletin – fresh, engaging, clearly told.

Roger relished all of that – being part of it. Nigel Margerison, one of the current Senior Duty Editors, put it simply and well: ‘he loved us – and we loved him’.

There were other touching comments in the condolences book signed by scores of his colleagues: ‘what a passion for news’; ‘taught me so much’; ‘never imagined I’d improve my left-hook in a night shift in the Newsroom’; and from a woman colleague, ‘he always called me darling’ – not a normal form of address in the Newsroom, but it was taken as it was meant, with warmth and good humour. Roger had an ample supply of both.

We’re moving out of Bush House in a few weeks time, and marking the occasion with a tribute to the old Newsroom. One of our senior editors Chris Moore, who has edited the booklet, came up with a master stroke – asking one of our youngest journalists, Eilis Staunton (who’s here today) to interview the father of the Newsroom.

For all his ready words, Roger was quite a private man. I’d rarely heard him talk, as he did to Eilis, about his time in the army, or indeed in the boxing ring. He also reminisced about his career – first a local newspaper in Northern Ireland, then in Tasmania where he and Rachel married. He was so evidently proud of his family – Rachel, and Nina, who has also pursued a very successful career in broadcast journalism, and whose achievements gave him such well merited pleasure.

Roger spoke of some of the key editorial decisions that gave him most satisfaction – reporting the surrender of Argentine forces in the Falklands well ahead of the pack and saving lives by doing so; keeping President Yeltsin alive when much of the news media, wrongly, declared him dead.

There was a reflective air in what he said to Eilis. ‘I left school at fifteen’, he said. ‘The BBC gave me a chance and I took it. It can be very disorganised, and it can be a career which impedes your social life. But I wouldn’t change anything.’

I would say of Roger the words he used so often, which became his calling card, which now has a life of its own among World Service journalists. I can’t manage the brogue, the jauntiness, the twinkle, the trademark posture. But I can say, Roger Donaghy – good story.