Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Pioneering boxing commentator known for first live sports coverage from behind the Iron Curtain and via satellite.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:07As a youngster, what did you want to be, Harry?
I really always wanted to be a journalist. In fact, I don't think I ever had in my mind any idea of doing anything else. I was good at English at school. I liked writing stories, essays. But perhaps an even greater factor was the fact that I didn't want to go into my father's business. He was a wholesale fish merchant in Billingsgate. And I always felt that my future really didn't lie in fish.
Presenter asks
0:41So when you left school, how did you set about getting into journalism?
Well, I read an advertisement one day in a newspaper called The Greyhound Express … and there it said Editorial assistant required and I wrote off … and I went to the Greyhound Express and I got the job … I found myself one of a staff of two. Editing the Greyhound Express. And the other chap was the editor … R. M. Samuel … he taught me an awful lot of what I know today about journalism.
Presenter asks
2:01How did broadcasting come into your life?
Well, like all young men, I had this great conceit, of course, that I could do things better than anybody else, and I … in the early days of television, in the late nineteen forties, I wrote off to the BBC and said, 'Look, I'm very interested in boxing, and I think I could be one of your boxing commentators.' … I got a reply from a chap called Michael Henderson … he said … 'Why don't you come and see me … and have an audition.' … I went to Mr. Henderson's office, and the first thing he said … 'we don't actually have any films of boxing, so we can't audition you on there.' He said, 'Would you like to have a go at soccer?' … So he handed me a big script … described the first half of a match at Craven Cottage between Fulham and Everton. … [T]hat's how I got into television.
Presenter asks
3:12[After your first BBC job,] did they come thick and fast?
No, they didn't. At first I used to be the fill-in guy when other chaps couldn't do it. People like Peter Wilson used to do it in those days, Freddie Mills. … when they weren't available they used to call an H. Carpenter and I was very glad to get the job.
Presenter asks
4:23You have an audience of millions of people for your boxing commentaries. A lot of people think it should be banned. What's your comment on that?
I think morally it's a sport which is very difficult to defend. I've never made any pretence of the fact that I think it's a very dangerous sport, and certainly it needs every medical safeguard that you can muster, in order to make it acceptable. … [I]n the last twenty years, boxing has become much more humane, and rightly so. I can remember fights … in the late nineteen forties which wouldn't be countenanced today.
“I always felt that my future really didn't lie in fish. Well, it would have meant getting up very early in the morning to. Yes, all his life, my father. He's just retired, actually. For fifty odd years, he got up at three or four in the morning, and that was enough to put a young chap off for good.”
“To this day, I remain one of the few chaps in the world who really knows that there is such a thing as Russian Morse and Japanese Morse. And it, I assure you, Roy, it is quite different to British Morse. But nobody ever believes me.”
“Travelling is really one of the great joys of the job.”
“I've never made any pretence of the fact that I think it's a very dangerous sport, and certainly it needs every medical safeguard that you can muster, in order to make it acceptable.”