Dramatis personae

The extracts from John Humphrys' tales of life at the BBC continue in the Daily Mail. Today, he covers the re-launch of the Nine O'Clock News in 1981, to be presented,  by 'proper' journalists, John and John Simpson. Many raspberries were heard across the country, from an audience sad to have lost Richard Baker.

"From the bosses, there was an ominous silence until the day I was called into the editor’s office. It was a Wednesday and he told me I’d need to come in the next day to read the news.

I reminded him that John was on the rota. Not any longer, he said. He’s on a plane, on his way to Uruguay.

I gather the Director-General, no less, had decided that enough was enough and one of us had to be sacrificed to appease the audience."

That Director General was Sir Ian Trethowan, himself a former presenter on ITN.

Then, in 1985, another re-launch for the Nine.

"I was told by my clearly discomfited boss that, in future, the Nine would have two presenters — and the other would be Julia Somerville.

Then he waited for me to ask the obvious question. It was the only one that mattered: ‘Who will read the headlines?’ He looked down at his shoes and mumbled: ‘Umm, Julia.’ And that’s when I decided that my time as a newsreader was up."

John's boss at that time was one Tony Hall.