This tribute to Jane was written by James Edwards:

JANE CARRINGTON died aged 75, on November 8, 2005, at the Royal Berkshire Hospital:

We cannot let the shock of her death pass without remembering for our comfort something of the working life we shared with her.

She was central, indeed vital, to the life of Bush newsroom.  It could not have functioned as well as it did without her.

She must have had an official title but, as was not uncommon at Bush, it was never used.  She was, simply, Jane.  Everyone knew from the moment they arrived in the room that she arranged the rotas and was therefore unquestioningly the most important person in it. Well not actually in it, because her office on the fourth floor with its windows looking out over the room was actually separate.  The door was almost always open.  If it were closed the visiting sub, duty editor or the like was clearly discussing something confidential.

It is doubtful that any fractious relationship among the temperamental journalists or secret liaison unknown to everyone else was not known to Jane.  She was inscrutable but arranged shift patterns so that they caused as little disturbance as possible.

She was also adept at persuading people do do shifts they were not too keen on, often offering the sweetener of a day off that did not fit their pattern.  It was also done by a charming smile which made one feel so generous about doing an extra dawn rather than spending it in bed.

We all have individual memories of Jane.  She was a slight figure, the disability brought about by polio in childhood gradually worsening as the years went on.  An abiding memory is of her walking slowly through the newsroom to go down to the canteen for an evening meal before returning to the small room she occupied in town during the week.  On Thursdays she drove back to her delightful cottage and small garden at Dunsfold in Surrey.

She was a private person. Only gradually did some learn that she was of the Carrington family that was part of the Bloomsbury group, that she had grown up on a farm among the sweeping Oxford downs of which she was so fond all her life, that her brother was a farmer in Australia, that her mother died in her one hundredth year last year. Jane's sister was the artist Joanna Carrington, who was revealed during the 1980s as also being the naive painter Reginald Pepper. Her aunt was Dora Carrington, whose fame was enhanced in 1995 by her becoming the subject of the movie "Carrington".  Her father, Noel Carrington, was co-founder of Puffin Books.

Jane retired more than 15 years ago and moved into sheltered accommodation in Liphook, Hampshire, in October 2000 and then at Goring on Thames, Oxfordshire, in February the following year.

There she was host to many of her Bush House friends, going with them to one of the local pubs for lunch - she was always finding new ones to add to those she must have known most of her life.  She really did have a good eye for old country pubs.  There was of course the "ladies' lunches", sometimes at a lady's house or field or garden picnic in the summer. They enabled her to keep up with the friends she had made when she worked at Monitoring as well as those from Bush newsroom.

At Bush she worked for some time in the European service before moving to the newsroom where she was certainly well established in the roles of dispenser of  rotas and confessional aunt by the late 1960s.

Jane has been described at probably the last civilized person at Bush; her death was unexpected and therefore a great shock.  It truly marks the end of an era.  She herself, of course, would not have seen what the fuss was about.

We shall miss her.

James T. Edwards
Tudeley, Kent.

This from Brian Barron:

For a whole generation of BBC journalists  in the  1960s and 70s  Jane Carrington  was a friend and source of  support while at the same time managing to keep a rigorous eye on the  Bush House External Services News rota.  She did not miss much as she moved the players on the board,  fairly but firmly,   for  a news department which ran 24 hours a day,  right through every year.  She could be quite tough  if she thought  you had taken a day off  without an adequate excuse and I recall being chewed over for  being late back after one bank holiday.

Bush News was full of exotic characters  from every corner of Europe many of whom had fled from their homelands during  the  Hitler years.  But  under the External Services editor,  Kenneth Fairfax,  the mid 60s was a time of change as Bush News began to modernise its thinking and journalistic practice.   Jane Carrington played  a key role behind the scenes bolstering the  existing staff and welcoming the influx of  younger journalists from outside the corporation.  Jane  endured a lifelong disability without complaint.  

She was a  charming,  witty companion,  and had a wide-ranging knowledge  of  the arts, especially classical music and literature.  For many years she shared  a delightful  house  in Duncan Terrace near the Islington canal  before retiring to a cottage in the country.  She personified the best of the old-style 'civilised' BBC from the post-war era and many of us will remember her with great affection.

James Edwards delivered this eulogy at Jane's funeral:

Jane was vital to the working of Bush House newsroom for more than 20 years. One or two thought they might know her official job title but no one used it. Her name alone was enough to make clear her importance.

Jane was in charge of the highly complex rota system required for the 24 hours a day operation providing 200 new bulletins and programmes for 44 different language services. It required a skill and personality such as Jane’s to ensure the system worked. thingy-ups were unknown.

After her departure computers were never able to match her abilities. Unlike the staff they couldn’t cope with night shifts – the dawns as they are known in newsroom parlance.

Jane’s office with windows overlooking the newsroom was a sanctum of support, friendly, intelligent conversation on a wide range of topics – and of discreet help. The door was virtually always open. If it were closed there was keen interest in the rest of the room as to who was in there, and why. The journalists talked freely to her, secure in the knowledge that nothing they said would be heard outside that little office.

It was the knowledge of the individuals thus gained that enabled Jane to ensure the shift system ran smoothly. Journalists can be quite temperamental and Jane was skilled in ensuring that those who had to work together were as compatible as possible. She was informed about liaisons and the ending of them; no confidence was betrayed. In a room full of curious and inquiring journalists she was better informed than any of them. Everyone knew it, but few of the curious had the temerity to question her. Should they try there was a raising of the eyebrows which quickly made them realize they had overstepped the line.

Although not herself a journalist she had the journalist’s skill of knowing when to be silent to invite that further disclosure which occurs between friends. One former well-known correspondent described her as a model interviewer.

Jane had a real skill in persuading people to change a shift; it was done with a smile that made one feel generous about spending a night in the newsroom rather than in bed.

The new wave of journalists arriving in the 1960s found a room peopled by men and women of high calibre who had either fled the advancing Nazis or Red Army and/or served in the armed forces and some of whom it was whispered had seen service with the Secret Service or army intelligence. They were of various, generally European, nationalities as well as British. Jane was a real link between them and the new brand of journalist arriving with experience in news agencies, in Africa, Switzerland, Australasia and other parts of the world, as well as with newspapers in Britain. She was a keeper of newsroom oral history stretching back before the time the various regional newsrooms were united.

She also probably features in the former communist secret police files in Poland . During the Cold War two senior Polish media figures being shown around the newsroom repeatedly asked about the Censor. Just before they left, they spotted Jane in her corner office and were triumphant:”Ah, she’s the censor!” They were disinclined to believe an explanation that although Jane was indeed powerful her power was restricted to planning the rota. You see, they knew that in the communist world such people were often very important politically. Jane was highly amused.

It was difficult to think of Jane with a life outside the newsroom, however people were curious. She was a very private person but some gradually learned of her love of the garden at her cottage in Dunsfold in Surrey and of the Oxfordshire countryside where she had lived after the war. They learned that the painter and prominent member of the Bloomsbury group, Dora Carrington, was her aunt.

Her sister Joanna was also an artist of note and so is her niece, Joanna’s daughter Sophie. Her father founded Puffin Books. Jane, herself, had a love of literature and could talk engagingly about it.

In retirement she kept up with her old friends and colleagues, most of them also retired, and there was a steady stream of visitors to Goring.

Jane was frequently in pain and discomfort caused by the polio she contracted about the age of five. As we know, it got worse as the years went by but she did not complain, indeed it was never mentioned; rather she was matter of fact about the consequences of disability.

She had a collapsible chair which could be stowed in a car boot so that she could be taken out on picnics or to lunch in one of the marvelous old country pubs she had either known much of her life or had recently learned about. There was at least one occasion when the only way in was to be carried, in her chair, up a flight of steps. She judged a pub not on the quality of its beer or wine – she usually restricted herself to a glass of lager and one of wine – but on its ambience and food.

Lunch would often be followed by a tour of her favourite places, with a stop here and there to enjoy a familiar view and to explain its place in her childhood and youthful memory.

Jane was at the BBC for nearly forty years. A former correspondent described her as probably the last civilized person in Bush House. Her death was a great shock. It truly marks the end of an era. She herself, of course, would not have seen what all the fuss was about.

Jane will be very sadly missed - but remembered with great affection.