Nick Clarke: Radio professional

By Torin Douglas
Media correspondent, BBC News

Nick Clarke, the presenter of BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme, has died of cancer at the age of 58.

His broadcasting professionalism proved inspirational for many people who work in radio.

Nick Clarke was a courteous yet incisive interviewer

Nick Clarke was one of the great radio broadcasters, described by one newspaper as a "national treasure" and by another as "the kind of radio presence we can't do without".

As presenter of The World At One and chairman of Round Britain Quiz - and often Any Questions - his wit and intelligence shone through, in his scripts and his questions.

He was a model and inspiration to many of those of us who work in radio.

So who better to have written the best-selling biography of the veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke, one of the outstanding radio communicators of all time?

Mark Damazer, the controller of Radio 4, said: "Nick had many of the same attributes as his hero.

"A sublime voice, a mastery of language, an ability to paint a picture with astonishing economy, and above all a connection with the audience."

'Penetrating questions'

Nick Clarke's BBC career - after training on the Yorkshire Evening Post - began in television, with the Money Programme and Newsnight, but he discovered what he called "the wonder of radio" on The World This Weekend.

In 1994 he became presenter of The World At One, where he established a reputation as a courteous - yet searching and incisive - interviewer, in contrast to the "gladiatorial" approach favoured by others.

The Guardian wrote a leading article praising him when he returned to Radio 4: "At the end of a Nick Clarke interview, the listener is more likely to be impressed by what the interviewee has been prompted to say than by the pyrotechnic techniques of the interviewer. He persists in demanding an answer but without any lapse in courtesy."

Politicians of all sides have praised his fairness and ability to prise answers from them

In his tribute, the BBC's director general Mark Thompson explained how Nick Clarke did it.

"I know, because I've been on the receiving end," he said.

"He would listen to your answers and the next question would be very closely based on what you said and would be very penetrating.

"So you heard conversations, and people were forced to follow him and to follow the line of argument. It meant it was very searching.

"And I think that although he was always courteous and always thoughtful in his interviews he was actually one of the most penetrating and sometimes one of the most devastating interviewers we had."

Consummate professional

Politicians of all sides have praised his fairness and ability to prise answers from them.

The leader of the house Jack Straw used a cricketing analogy: "He was very, very professional and he was one of these people who could take an interviewee off guard.

"Some of the balls would be coming straight down the wicket, you could knock them for four or six.

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"But every so often, there'd be a nice slow ball you'd think you could also knock for four, and suddenly you'd find your middle stump taken out."

Nick Clarke loved cricket - his father had been a cricket correspondent - and even after he was diagnosed with cancer, and had to have a leg amputated, he insisted on umpiring during the summer.

He also returned to broadcasting, presenting The World At One and Any Questions - as well as a moving audio-diary of his illness, made with his wife Barbara.

Poignant, but not self-pitying, that programme only added to the respect many listeners and colleagues had for Nick Clarke, the consummate broadcasting professional.