Sunday, February 8, 2015

Linda Alexander

Former Newsnight presenter Linda Alexander has died at the age of 63.

She joined the BBC initially as a secretary in the World Service in the late sixties (when it was still called the External Services), and was occasionally asked to present. She moved to Television Centre as a researcher on CEEFAX (the bicycle of digital media), had a spell as a news trainee and then moved to Newsnight. There she was initially asked to present the "other news", while the main presenters were Peter Snow, John Tusa, Charles Wheeler and Peter Hobday (couldn't happen now, could it ?).  David Icke occasionally presented a short sport round-up.

This lead to opportunities to front the main BBC1 bulletins, and occasional narration work on schools programmes. In 1983, she worked alongside a young Newsnight tyro, one Tony Hall.

In 1987 and 1988, she fronted The Education Programme, with Martin Young, a weekly show on BBC2. She presented a couple of editions of File on 4 in 1989, and wrote for The Times Higher Education Supplement.

Her second husband was the BBC's Political Editor, David Holmes (interesting the first editor of Kaleidscope on Radio 4), who later became BBC Secretary. In retirment the couple moved to Cambridge and then Suffolk. They set up a music festival in the village of Cratfield, and Linda developed her interesting in painting, woodcuts and graphic design.  David died in February 2014.


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