Clive Ferguson RIP

I first met Clive when, as a BBC News Trainee in 1974, I was sent to BBC Northern Ireland for three months, and I was deployed to PM Ulster, a half hour opt-out from PM on Radio 4.  There seemed to be quite a few reporters on this show, sitting at desks organised like a classroom, with the boss, Keith Hayes, at the teacher's table - Wilson Harte, David Beak, Maggie Taggart and Clive doing his bidding. 

Keith spent most of his time rehearsing a daily Gloria Hunniford show, for the launch of Radio Ulster, which came in January 1975.  It was still a time of violence, car bombs etc, but PM Ulster was pretty gentle stuff, with regular features from Frank Delaney in Dublin, which obviously irritated one large section of the audience. If someone big, like Ian Paisley, was coming in for a tv interview, we'd knock him off as well. Presenter Sean Rafferty was deemed too lightweight to handle this sort of stuff, so a local junior school head (can't track his name) came in. He sat with Paisley at a separate studio table, and Paisley eased himself into the chair, placing his large personal revolver on the desk. 

Socially, most of us under-30s repaired to the BBC Club after Scene Around Six, and things would evolve from there. Jeremy Paxman occasionally joined in, already reporting and presenting the local tv current affairs show Spotlight. Sometimes there were journeys outside Belfast's city limits, for Italian food; sometimes it ended up back at various larger flats. Always fun. 

By the time myself and Clive met up regularly again, I was with Radio Five Live as we moved to Television Centre, and Clive was a manager in Newsgathering. Both of us had a fair share of management 'b*ll*cks' to handle.  I joined him, with other luminaries, from VT Editors through IT staff to HR professionals, over many a lunchtime at what we dubbed "The Podium of Fear" in the BBC Club. If the wisdom imparted over those sessions had been implemented by management, the whole BBC would be in a much better place by now. Clive also regularly met up with Five Live presenter Peter Allen, at the fruit machine. Clive would keep an eye on whether or not it had already 'paid out'; whether it had or not, the pair seemed to spend at least a quarter of an hour each day in its thrall, before pressing on to other duties. Still fun.