Roland Fox, MBE, was the second person employed by the BBC as a Parliamentary Correspondent.  He has died at the age of 97.     Peter Hill remembers him:

Roland Fox (b. 4th January 1913, d.12 May 2010) was a BBC Parliamentary Correspondent throughout the fifties – only the second in the post. With E.R.Thompson, whom he succeeded in 1955, and with Conrad Voss Bark, he covered the last years of Churchill's premiership, the heated Suez debates, the first televised State Opening of Parliament in 1958, toured Africa with Harold Macmillan, and made important breakthroughs in coverage of party conferences.

Earlier, in 1948, he had reported the Arab-Israeli conflict in Israel.  On returning home after interviewing Count Bernadotte, he learned, at Heathrow, that Bernadotte had been assassinated. Fox also reported extensively from the United Nations in New York and from the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

During the war he spent most of his six years in the army on the staff of General Montgomery at 21st Army Group Headquarters – his knowledge of shorthand was regarded by his superiors as more important than his training as a Sergeant gunner -  and was posted to GHQ Home Forces at St Paul's School, Hammersmith. When Monty arrived, Fox recalled him telling the assembled officers, "There will be no changes", and then replacing nearly all the top staff with officers who had served with him in North Africa. Fox assisted with the planning for D-Day at Southwick House near Portsmouth, and  went on through France, Belgium and Germany,  ending as a Major and Military Assistant to two successive Chiefs of Staff at HQ British Army of the Rhine. He was appointed MBE (Mil.) for his services.

Edward Roland Ruthven Fox (known to his friends as 'Roly') was born in Derby in 1913, the son of an insurance manager. He left Derby Municipal  Secondary School at 14 and  started in a coal office at 10/- a week. He went to night school to learn shorthand, which was regarded by colleagues as impeccable, and became a copytaker on the Derby Evening Telegraph, then moved as a reporter to the Stoke Evening Sentinel until the outbreak of war.

When he was demobbed, he joined the Press Association, moving on to the BBC. He became assistant to 'Teddy' Thompson, who had reported the whole of the '45 Labour government from Parliament single-handed, and soon found himself on the air, although he had never been voice-tested, and was never told he would be required to broadcast.

The BBC operated from a small telephone booth in the Central Lobby – once, the eccentric right-winger Sir Waldron Smithers wrenched open the door as  Fox was phoning copy through, and shouted "Tell them they're all a lot of Commies!". After some 'craft resistance' from newspaper journalists he and Thompson were allocated two seats in the press gallery and a small office; in 1958 he was the first broadcaster to be elected Chairman of the Gallery.

Fox also  joined the Lobby, for which his discreet and friendly manner fitted him admirably. Some Lobby members – who were bound by arcane rules under which they did not "see" anything, or identify whom they talked to -  could still remember their predecessors wearing silk top hats to distinguish them from  MPs – and he got to know Churchill , Attlee, Eden and Macmillan. He was once sent to Hyde Park Gate to interview Churchill at home,(thinking the meeting there with constituency chairmen might lead to a resignation announcement)  but when the PM spotted the recording box and microphone he courteously told Fox:" I am sorry you have been troubled – but thank you for coming!"

Churchill eventually resigned during a newspaper strike, so the news of this and of Eden's succession came from the BBC and its parliamentary  staff.

Radio broadcasts were done remotely from a dismal basement in Bridge Street, which he and Thompson found in their lunch hour - but first they had to arouse the caretaker, Mr Thimblethwaite, on the night bell, and get him to open up the room. For the two of them there was no guidance, no training and no autocue – they often read straight from their notes on to the air, anticipating the next morning's press by many hours.

When TV news began, it often meant a long journey by cab up to Alexandra Palace in north London - they learned their lines by heart on the way.  Later the Westminster studio was adapted for TV, and Fox did the first ever live TV broadcast fed in by remote control. On one occasion the studio lights failed suddenly in the middle of his piece, but he knew what he wanted to say and gamely continued to the end of his live report in total darkness. He never had any editorial supervision – all that was required, he said, was that he come out on time!

Fox and Thompson pioneered the coverage of party conferences in Blackpool, Brighton, Scarborough and other resorts. They even covered the Communist Party conference, which they were glad to find held in London's West End. Fox's radio reports were often cut onto discs, but for his TV debut, he had to travel 60 miles from Scarborough to Leeds, where he broadcast from the tiny manager's office in the Palace of Varieties. The camera (normally used for Old Tyme Music Hall) was in the corridor.

The Suez crisis, covered by Fox and Voss Bark, excited such passions that an enquiry into the BBC's Parliamentary reporting was demanded – the first of many – and a Governor was sent to produced a report. She said their reporting had been fair and balanced. Fox recalled that despite the pressure then from politicians on BBC management, to suppress divisions in the governing party, no pressure was brought on the correspondents by the management. "We were expected to know the standards we should aim for", said Fox, "and in short, our judgement was relied on".  

Fox also took part in the coverage of the 1959 election, the first one ever reported fully in news bulletins. Before he left Parliament Fox accompanied the Prime Minister throughout his six-week tour of Africa, which included West Africa, Rhodesia and the British Protectorates, and first reported back Macmillan's historic "Wind of Change" speech from the Capetown Parliament. He recalled that Prime Minister Verwoerd was completely taken aback.

In 1960 Fox left Parliament, where he was always supportive and kind to younger correspondents, and went on to perform several behind-the-scenes roles for the BBC, as  deputy to the Head of  Publicity, and to the Editor of News and Current Affairs, retiring in 1974.

Roland Fox was first married to Josephine Johnson, who died in 1992, by whom he had a daughter and a son. He later moved to Norfolk.  In 2000 he married a longtime  friend, Joan Auders, when they were both in their eighties. She died in 2008.

He is survived by a son, David,  and a daughter, Elaine, by five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. David manages a hotel in Argyll, and Elaine is married to Dr Terry Dudeney in Henley-on-Thames.