David Smeeton RIP

Former BBC correspondent David Smeeton has died in his adopted home of Mandurah, Western Australia. He started his career as a reporter in the Plymouth offices of the Western Morning News and in 1960 he became a radio and television reporter with the BBC.

After a spell as a general reporter in London, he became the first BBC Correspondent in Tokyo. This was followed by jobs in Germany and later, in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

He had two spells with the education brief - as reporter and later correspondent. He was hugely active, fronting programmes on tv and radio, and monitoring Margaret Thatcher as Education Secretary from 1970 to 1974.

When he was assigned as network's man in the South-West, he was so territorial it was claimed that all reporters travelling to the States had to clear their assignments with him because their flights passed over Bristol. In communication with London, he occasionally referred to himself in the third person; when dispatched on a job, "Smeeton will be there" could be heard in response, sometimes through the distortion of his beloved and pioneering Storno Radio Phone. The nickname "Tiger" lasted sometime.

In 1999, as a millennium project, David researched, wrote and presented Five Beaches, a two-hour video celebrating the area around his then home of Thurlestone, featuring interviews with 1,000 residents.

In 2010, David and Diana uprooted to Mandurah, Western Australia. David and Diana taught croquet to fellow retirees. By 2015 he was confident enough about his new home's history to present "Mandurah Milestones and Memories" twice to full houses at the town's Performing Arts Centre.