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By Richard Parsons, Director of Training
I was sadder than most people to read of the death in April of the legendary BBC boxing commentator, Harry Carpenter.
Though he would not have realised it, he had a profound influence on my journalism career more than 40 years ago.
I was at Harlow College, studying for my NCTJ qualifications on block release, when I met Harry for the first and only time.
Our class was set a project, to produce a course newspaper, with the theme of television, which was still a developing medium in those days.
Having been overlooked as editor – or, indeed, any of the other senior positions on our one-off newspaper – I set about finding a couple of original contributions.
My first, I remember, was an interview with the company that produced the TV audience figures and the weekly Top Ten of shows that featured in the daily papers.
The other was with Harry. I’d always been an admirer of his commentaries and I resolved to try to get an interview with him.
Looking back now, it was ridiculously easy to arrange. I phoned the BBC sports department, left a message and, with a day or two, a secretary had come back to organise the interview.
It would not happen these days. In fact, it would be such a complicated process that most people (probably me included) would not bother.
So, perhaps it was the freshness of youth, the principle that everything is possible if you try, that made it happen!
I remember my meeting with Harry for the fact that – for some strange reason – I never produced a notebook at any time during the interview. He remarked on the fact and I cannot tell you why I made no notes during our conversation. Perhaps I felt a notebook would be intrusive, perhaps I felt I needed to keep looking him in the eye and have the next question ready immediately, but in hindsight it was madness on my part.
I don’t think I got anything wrong because I sent Harry a copy and he would have remarked, but it was not something I would advise to current trainees.
I often remember that interview, and it came back to me in surprisingly graphic detail when I read Harry’s obituary in The Times.
A great man – and a very accessible one, too.
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