When I was asked to do a memory piece on ABC’s Features Department I found it difficult to start. Individual shows fade from memory and when I tried to recall them it was the faces of colleagues, friends, that remained as vivid as ever.

They were a remarkable group of men and women who served the Features Department. The resolute, brave and intellectual Penry Jones, now Head of Religious Broadcasting for the BBC; Penry going to bat with Geoffrey Gilbert when there was a major row over A Man Dies; Geoffrey, now Programme Controller of Ulster, tackling every problem with his own unique combination of gaiety and drive which never deserted him whether he was on a rain-drenched Other Man’s Farm, wrestling with the network when we started World of Sport, or taking a new look at Religion or at Adult Education, or motoring, or any of the many jobs that he tackled. Geoffrey had a unique idea of a working week – as far as I could make out he used to deduct about 30 hours for sleep, and spend the rest of his time on Company business.

In the office next door in the Features corridor, was Reginald Collin riding herd on a strange anarchic collection of talents under the banner of Tempo. Never phased by temperaments or disasters because, as he would airily put it, after current affairs with Tom Brennand and Roy Bottomley nothing bothered you! And we all knew what he meant! Tom and Roy, of course, were our Billy Foulkes and Nobby Stiles (don’t ask me which was which), but neither of them ever intended to lose in any conditions, on any pitch, home or away no matter how many goals behind. And they seldom did.

The Features people were a stroppy bunch – ostensibly I ran the Department, but I sometimes wondered whether control of such a collection of individualists was far more myth than reality. One recalls the clowning and brilliant Joe McGrath with a degree of temperament that had carried him from Scottish First Division Football to Spain to Rediffusion, to us, to the BBC, to feature films. Not only a fine talent but one of the most engaging of human beings. But flair is not always the prerogative of the extrovert as the quiet Ben Churchill proved. A producer of enormous tact and sympathy and as fine a gallery director as I have ever seen. Another quiet man was Ted Childs, whose sense of humour and wit surmounted some very tough problems. Anyone remember the University College of North Wales at Bangor?

We will not forget the ladies: Helen Standage, who called a spade a damned old shovel (to put it mildly), without ever losing her dainty femininity. The resourceful and versatile Margery Baker. Pam Lonsdale who never stopped worrying, and never turned out a show that did not look polished, sure of itself and intelligent. Marjory Ruse, whose hardheaded Northern intellect was always tempered with a sympathetic and loyal approach towards her colleagues and the Company.

Back to the men and Geoffrey Ramsey, a strong, competent man from my own side of the water; the genial and charming Mike Vardy, and those talented guests from other quarters, Michael Mills, now Head of Comedy at the BBC and Peter Luke who is writing in Spain – so he says. The steadfast Malcolm Morris, who was there at the beginning and came back at the end and is now the Programme Controller of Tyne Tees. And, of course, Mike Hodges, the bearded red-head (you can never trust people who look like that for a start!) whose first contact with ABC was as a teleprompter operator at Didsbury and who has now become a national name as a producer/writer and disciple of Marshal McLuahan.

Then there was sturdy Tom Clegg, Ian Mackenzie, David Wickes, loyal, clever John Kershaw, and those three indispensable ladies – Iris Pratt, Rene Bloomstein and Jean Smith (Trinder). Some great P.A.s, too – Nora Fielding, Verity Lambert, Ruth Parkhill, Jackie Davis and Anne Summerton.

Possibly I should have listed “shows” and “firsts”, and there were plenty, in religion, in the arts, in sport (John Bromley & Co), in late-night television, in Adult Education and in current affairs, but to me people are always far more important than occasions and it is the people that made the programmes.

If I had to select one memory to epitomise the way the Features Department functioned it would be the occasion of the tragic death of Hugh Gaitskell. I heard the announcement on the radio and within 10 minutes, believe it or not, I had been rung by every single producer and director in the Features Department volunteering their services if we wished to do some sort of extra programme. Tom and Roy, within hours, had located a miner in Leeds who had been the victim of an industrial accident and whose entire way of life had been preserved by his M.P. – Gaitskell. Somehow Terry Pace and the Mobile Unit managed to get cameras across the Pennines in appalling winter conditions and ABC delivered probably the most singular and moving obituary on Gaitskell in the entire range of British broadcasting.

This incident was to me typical of the incredible energy, goodwill and co-operation that we experienced together in those exciting years of Feature Programming. I doubt if I will every enjoy broadcasting more and I am sure I could never find a better collection of men and women anywhere at any time.

If my reminiscences of the Features Department has become a salute to the Programme Staff and the production colleagues that so ably serviced them, I do not apologise. I think that’s the way it should be. That is the way it was.

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