Administrator
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Maureen Bebb and Chris Bell have written this obituary:
Robert Elston Gregson (always known as Bob) was a dominating and admired figure in those last century days when the External Services as a whole were based in Bush House and World Service was the proud name of the 24-hour English Network. After wartime service in the Royal Armoured Corps, reaching the rank of Acting Major by 1945, Bob returned to Liverpool University, gaining a first in Classics.
He joined the BBC in Manchester as a Talks Producer, where he met his wife Joyce, and was one of the earliest producers of Gardeners’ Question Time. (He was very proud of this and would often refer to it in later years). A move to London followed, to the Overseas Service at 200 Oxford Street and the Talks and Features Department, which originated output for the English-language General Overseas Service (GOS).
Rapid promotion followed and soon after Oxford Street operations moved to Bush House, Bob became Head of GOS, in 1958. He was to remain its head for 15 years and transform it from a service aimed at those overseas who thought of London and the UK as ‘home’ to a service for anyone the world over who could understand English. In 1965 it was appropriately rechristened World Service (and Bob Head of World Service) and became a permanent 24-hour service in 1968.
In those far-off days, the network boasted drama, music from Pop Club to the Proms (how incensed Bob was when a Proms press conference one year gave no recognition to World Service’s role in BBC Proms broadcasts), comedy and sport as well as round the clock world news and current affairs coverage. Bob was a demanding editor, insisting that the audience of many millions benefit from the highest standards, in both programming and presentation. Not all the heads of output departments, whether in Bush House or BH, particularly enjoyed planning meetings where they had to pitch offerings to Bob and his team (“Define for us the Unique Selling Point for this series...”) But World Service thrived as audiences grew, particularly when overseas relay stations such as Ascension, Antigua and Masirah came on stream.
World Service survived an overall but maladroit reorganization at Bush and was indeed enhanced when the African and European English broadcasts came under Bob’s aegis. In 1973, he became Controller Overseas Services. His relinquishing of the editorship of World Service was marked at his farewell party by presentation of a gift from his staff of an engraved silver salver bearing the legend Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumaudi. With Alexander Lieven as European Controller and Gerry Mansell as Managing Director, External Services had indeed a strong team. Various FCO attempts to close or reduce services were successfully resisted.
Working for and with Bob was always stimulating if at times exhausting. A colleague once ventured to remark that maybe he was “the last of the Reithians”. He snorted dismissively but perhaps, just maybe, he was really rather pleased.
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