Item from BBC Television News and Newsreel.
Michael Henderson
APTS Founder
23rd August 1920 - 5th January 2001
As we reach our 100th YouTube upload we are delighted to be able to feature our founder Michael Henderson, from this 1948 film concerning London on August Bank Holiday in 1949.
Michael, who was born in Scotland and brought up in Surrey, studied pure mathematics at Oxford and was a keen rugby player, becoming an Oxford blue. With the start of the Second World War his education was disrupted, and after six years in the Royal Horse Artillery in Armoured Divisions, including the Desert Rats, he returned to Britain to face a choice either return to Oxford to continue with my studies and develop an academic career, or do something different. The something different was to become a studio manager and newsreader with the BBC in Bush House, working mainly for the European service.
However, his vocal ability was soon identified for the fledgling Television Service, and he was to become one of the main sports commentators on BBC Television. I went to Twickenham where I happened to know there was a match being televised. I went up to have a look at the scanner (mobile television control van) and happened to notice the cameraman taking shots of pictures of the teams, said Michael, who pointed out to the producer that two of the players in the photograph were not in fact playing.
At half-time he was given the opportunity to listen to the commentator through cans (earphones) and, being a young naïve man, told the producer he could do a better job. This he proved and ended up commentating for some 15 years after this event. The great thing was that nobody had done it before or written anything about it. We just had a ball, working 80-plus hours a week, pulling together to work out how the new medium should be used.
Michael worked with some of the well-known commentators in sport as well as covering special occasions, such as the Coronation in 1953, and the Cenotaph services. One of his friends was the late Richard Dimbleby with whom he worked on many occasions. Other events Mike covered included Wimbledon, the Boat Race (it is Michaels voice so often heard on re-runs of the famous boat race when both boats capsized), professional golf and rugby, as well as major national news events.
TV Newsreel did not escape Mikes attention, for it was his voice that narrated the light-hearted reports or funnies. His voice was considered lighter than that of the main narrator, Edward Halliday.
Michael also produced the first two television programmes in Wales with Wynford Vaughan Thomas, another close friend and commentator.
In 1960, he gave up his job after becoming a freelance producer and commentator and diversified his career by becoming a Child Care Officer in Oxford City Childrens Department.
But in 1970 he returned to radio and helped initiate Radio Oxford where he worked for six years becoming manager of the only sports and arts centre in the country, at the Old Gaol Abingdon, where his wife, Mira, founded a community music centre.
On retirement he and Mira moved to North Queensland in Australia to enjoy watching two step-granddaughters grow up. In 1984, they returned to Britain and moved to Llandinam, Wales, to share a small sheep farm with Miras second daughter Polly and her husband.
In 1990 Mike heard Judith Chalmers on BBC Radio 2 appealing for a wartime anti-aircraft battery reunion. This began him wondering why those who helped pioneer the worlds first public television service, at Alexandra Palace, had never got together in the past sixty years. How many of them were still alive?
The formation of APTS was a grand finale to a near lifetime career in broadcasting. It was always Mikes dream that Oxford University, who, at least in the early days of APTS, were very enthusiastic, would research and publish a definitive account of the setting up of the worlds first regular public high-definition television service. Sadly, this was not to be, and as yet, such a book has not materialised.
On a personal level, it was a pleasure to know Mike who was always fully supportive of my development of the APTS Archive and was delighted when the APTS web site went live.
Mike continues to be sadly missed by his family, his many friends in the Alexandra Palace Television Society and former colleagues of the BBC.
Simon Vaughan
Archivist
Alexandra Palace Television Society
This film footage is from the Archive Collection held by the Alexandra Palace Television Society.
http://www.apts.org.uk
~ APTS ~
Preserving the televisual past for the digital future
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"Not much different from the old 'Pathe-News' again for public showing, but only in london river-thames, side-shows; again for tourists!"
Grifiki 9 months ago