Andrew Whitehead
From another era
It's a pity about my shorts, and even more of a pity that I didn't keep my fair hair ... but this is a wonderful sunny memento of my childhood. Me as a toddler with my mother.
It was taken when on holiday at Hunmanby Gap - where 30 years or more later my parents lived and where my mother died - in, I'd guess, 1958.
Hunmanby Gap is a few miles south of Filey on the Yorkshire coast, and is blighted by severe coastal erosion. If you take a photo through the same window now, the sea will be a lot, lot closer.
There's still a cafe at Hunmanby Gap, clinging on at the top of the steps leading to a windswept beach. I remember going there as a toddler, and occasionally buying toys for the beach.
The cliff top walk keeps changing route as bits of it get swept down to become part of the beach, but it's a wonderfully bracing stroll.
It was taken when on holiday at Hunmanby Gap - where 30 years or more later my parents lived and where my mother died - in, I'd guess, 1958.
Hunmanby Gap is a few miles south of Filey on the Yorkshire coast, and is blighted by severe coastal erosion. If you take a photo through the same window now, the sea will be a lot, lot closer.
There's still a cafe at Hunmanby Gap, clinging on at the top of the steps leading to a windswept beach. I remember going there as a toddler, and occasionally buying toys for the beach.
The cliff top walk keeps changing route as bits of it get swept down to become part of the beach, but it's a wonderfully bracing stroll.
On assignment
Photo: S. Martin, Creative Commons
For someone who doesn't usually scrub up too well for photos, this isn't at all bad. (Thanks to Steve!).
It was taken in May 2010 in the fishing harbour at Sekondi, in south-west Ghana. The boats had come in and unloaded their catch. They sold to a very assertive, and muscular, bunch of women - the fish traders. 'Who makes the most money?', I asked Kobe, the driver who took us to Sekondi. 'The fishing crews, or the women who buy their catch?' 'Oh, the women', he replied.
You can see more of Steve's photos from Ghana at http://www.flickr.com/photos/srmartin/sets/72157624002532631/
It was taken in May 2010 in the fishing harbour at Sekondi, in south-west Ghana. The boats had come in and unloaded their catch. They sold to a very assertive, and muscular, bunch of women - the fish traders. 'Who makes the most money?', I asked Kobe, the driver who took us to Sekondi. 'The fishing crews, or the women who buy their catch?' 'Oh, the women', he replied.
You can see more of Steve's photos from Ghana at http://www.flickr.com/photos/srmartin/sets/72157624002532631/
A fresh look
August 2012 - taken by Anu
Wedding Day in Delhi
We had two Delhi weddings. This was after the first, as I recall. At Tees Hazari, a ramshackle court building, in October 1994. We later had a much more splendid wedding, with a Hindu priest - and a traditional, exuberant brass band on the eve of the ceremony, playing Bollywood badly.
The smiles you see are a tribute to human resilience - and of course shared happiness. Tees Hazari was not a wonderful or romantic experience. The official who was to conduct the court wedding - not just for us, there were half-a-dozen other couples sharing the outer office - didn't return from lunch. We all sat and waited. And wondered, And waited a bit more.
Some of the others started to make a fuss. And after a while, all the happy couples and their witnesses and hangers on were led up staircases and along corridors to another room where a bureaucrat had reluctantly agreed to stand in for his absent colleague.
Just how reluctantly became quickly evident. Couples despatched without a smile. or with barely enough to repeat their vows before being ushered out into the world as man and wife. I had intended to read my vows in Hindi - but that would have taken quite a while, and would clearly not have amused the officiant, so it was a quick gabble in English. And the next one please.
The beard, by the way, was one of the early casualties of married life. Anu was set against it - and while she has tolerated a ponytail, and all sorts of other mild eccentricities down the years, the beard has not made a come back.
The smiles you see are a tribute to human resilience - and of course shared happiness. Tees Hazari was not a wonderful or romantic experience. The official who was to conduct the court wedding - not just for us, there were half-a-dozen other couples sharing the outer office - didn't return from lunch. We all sat and waited. And wondered, And waited a bit more.
Some of the others started to make a fuss. And after a while, all the happy couples and their witnesses and hangers on were led up staircases and along corridors to another room where a bureaucrat had reluctantly agreed to stand in for his absent colleague.
Just how reluctantly became quickly evident. Couples despatched without a smile. or with barely enough to repeat their vows before being ushered out into the world as man and wife. I had intended to read my vows in Hindi - but that would have taken quite a while, and would clearly not have amused the officiant, so it was a quick gabble in English. And the next one please.
The beard, by the way, was one of the early casualties of married life. Anu was set against it - and while she has tolerated a ponytail, and all sorts of other mild eccentricities down the years, the beard has not made a come back.
Seventeen years later ...
... and here we are, in August 2011, beside the Pacific (you can just spot it in the background) north of Los Angeles.
We were about to have an 'al fresco' lunch at Gladstone's, between Santa Monica and Malibu - eating seafood while watching pelicans dive for their dinner.
And no, it's not my usual beat. But it is nice to make it to California once in a lifetime.
We were about to have an 'al fresco' lunch at Gladstone's, between Santa Monica and Malibu - eating seafood while watching pelicans dive for their dinner.
And no, it's not my usual beat. But it is nice to make it to California once in a lifetime.
From the other side
Some wonderful photos from Anu's family - featuring one of her uncles, N.P. Tripathi, as a very young child, and taken (probably in Kanpur) in the 1920s. Mama-ji wrote down the circumstances of both photos, and those are included here. Sadly, he died in 2010.
Me and my friend
Yes, that is Shilpa Shetty.
And no, this isn't a photoshop job. Well, the rose is, but not the rest.
I can claim to be the person who (with a bit of help from Anu Malhotra - OK, quite a lot of help) introduced Shilpa to reality TV.
And this was a year or two before her brush with the loud mouthed Jade Goody on 'Big Brother', a row which did much to derail a Gordon Brown visit to India.
And no, this isn't a photoshop job. Well, the rose is, but not the rest.
I can claim to be the person who (with a bit of help from Anu Malhotra - OK, quite a lot of help) introduced Shilpa to reality TV.
And this was a year or two before her brush with the loud mouthed Jade Goody on 'Big Brother', a row which did much to derail a Gordon Brown visit to India.
India Days
Just came across this on one of those narcissistic web searches. It dates from 1999 - BBC publicity to promote coverage of that year's election in India. I am on the right - and my comrades in arms are, from the left, Daniel Lak, Mike Wooldridge and Sanjeev Srivastava.
I suspect the photos of all of us, and mine certainly, were already somewhat dated by the time this was put together. My beard had disappeared by the mid-1990s.
I suspect the photos of all of us, and mine certainly, were already somewhat dated by the time this was put together. My beard had disappeared by the mid-1990s.
'Voice for the World'
A World Service publicity brochure from - well, I'm guessing - the mid-1980s.
I am the World Service Chief Sub, in charge of the hourly nine-minute bulletins. Gwyn Jones is the Senior Duty Editor telling me what's coming up.
Also in the picture, as far as I can make out, are Jonathan Birchall, Rita Payne, Luke Albarin (standing) and Ed Greene.
Rita was the central copytaster, sorting through the news agency copy. You can see some in the sorting box in front of her and on the regional copytaster's desk to her left.
Ed would have been Arabic Chief Sub on that day, and Jonathan was on the Africa desk.
I am the World Service Chief Sub, in charge of the hourly nine-minute bulletins. Gwyn Jones is the Senior Duty Editor telling me what's coming up.
Also in the picture, as far as I can make out, are Jonathan Birchall, Rita Payne, Luke Albarin (standing) and Ed Greene.
Rita was the central copytaster, sorting through the news agency copy. You can see some in the sorting box in front of her and on the regional copytaster's desk to her left.
Ed would have been Arabic Chief Sub on that day, and Jonathan was on the Africa desk.
The World Today
This photo dates back to January 1999, when the World Today went 'global', and I was one of the four presenters of the South Asia strand. This was a BBC publicity photo for the launch.
The four of us are - from left to right - Lyse Doucet, who has had a glittering career and is now the BBC chief international correspondent and a presenter of 'Newshour' on the World Service and of BBC World News; George Arney, a hugely talented journalist and broadcaster who had earlier been the BBC's correspondent in Islamabad and Colombo; Ritula Shah, now presenter of the World Tonight on Radio 4; and me - I spent three years as a presenter and then became the programme's editor. Didin't we all look young!
As I post this (July 2012) the World Today is about to close. While I look forward to its successor, Newsday, I also look back with fondness and pride on all that the World Today achieved - including (after my time) a Sony Gold for best news and current affairs programme.
The four of us are - from left to right - Lyse Doucet, who has had a glittering career and is now the BBC chief international correspondent and a presenter of 'Newshour' on the World Service and of BBC World News; George Arney, a hugely talented journalist and broadcaster who had earlier been the BBC's correspondent in Islamabad and Colombo; Ritula Shah, now presenter of the World Tonight on Radio 4; and me - I spent three years as a presenter and then became the programme's editor. Didin't we all look young!
As I post this (July 2012) the World Today is about to close. While I look forward to its successor, Newsday, I also look back with fondness and pride on all that the World Today achieved - including (after my time) a Sony Gold for best news and current affairs programme.
Sonys 2010
First time I'd ever worn 'black tie' in my life, but I can sort of get used to it if it keeps bringing us luck. Lucy Walker is the glam one in the photo - 'Newshour; had just won Sony Gold as the best radio News and Current Affairs programme of the year.
I'm not one to brag, but World Service News got a brace of golds, a silver and a bronze.
OK, I am one to brag.
I'm not one to brag, but World Service News got a brace of golds, a silver and a bronze.
OK, I am one to brag.
The last Bush bulletin
It was with a great sense of sadness, and of achievement, that the last ever World Service news bulletin from Bush House was broadcast at midday on 12th July 2012. There was quite a gathering - and these pictures by the BBC's Jeff Overs capture the event really well.
Helen Boaden, Peter Horrocks and I spoke briefly after the final bulletin - which was read by Iain Purdon - and the picture on the left below is the view from the studio looking out on all those who had gathered to mark (or report on) the occasion.
This was not, of course, the end of the World Service - rather the last act in the BBC's 71 years in Bush House. World Service News teams are now based in the rather splendid extension to Broadcasting House in W1.
Helen Boaden, Peter Horrocks and I spoke briefly after the final bulletin - which was read by Iain Purdon - and the picture on the left below is the view from the studio looking out on all those who had gathered to mark (or report on) the occasion.
This was not, of course, the end of the World Service - rather the last act in the BBC's 71 years in Bush House. World Service News teams are now based in the rather splendid extension to Broadcasting House in W1.
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The Queen at BH
So this is from June 2013, when the Queen opened the new, extended Broadcasting House - and the canard that BBC journalists are a bunch of left-leaning Guardianistas was shot to pieces by an extravagant display of Royalist enthusiasm not seen since, well, for quite a very long time indeed.
From the Video Archive
The three brief items in the video above all date from my time in Delhi in the mid 1990s: meeting and interviewing Nelson Mandela; a brief piece from the CPI (M) headquarters in Calcutta, in which my dress sense or lack of it and matching hair style appals even me; and an extract from a piece filmed in Bangalore. It all goes to explain, no doubt, why I have made my career in radio.
