Roy Hayward

AFORMER BBC radio producer has passed away, aged 86. Roy Hayward was born in 1925 and was brought up in Hastings, although he lived in Keynsham for 42 years before settling in Uphill, Weston-super-Mare.

He joined the BBC in 1941, aged 16, at the Hastings relay transmitter as a junior maintenance engineer.

After training in Bristol, he was stationed at Broadcasting House, London, at the control centre of the Home and Light programmes.

Mr Hayward's war service was with the Fleet Air Arm and he returned after VE Day to the BBC where he became a studio manager in London. He worked on major radio drama productions such as Saturday Night Theatre and Mrs Dale's Diary.

After a promotion he was sent to the West's busy studio centre at Plymouth. Here he met and later married Glen. They had three children and celebrated 53 years of marriage this year.

At Plymouth he became a regular news reporter for Radio Newsreel and as one of the radio production staff produced many features and documentaries for the West of England Home Service.

Later he worked on television programmes in London, and directed the last few editions of the popular discussion programme The Brains Trust and the first DIY series featuring Barry Bucknall.

He was seconded to UNESCO in 1960 to assist in the training in Sudan of radio staff, drawn from several of the Arab Member States, in modern techniques of production. As a result, Mr Hayward was invited by Tanzania to train their newly appointed staff the following year and, again, a year later, was training broadcasters in Malawi.

Transferred back to the Bristol studios, Mr Hayward, who was commonly known as "Willum", produced many radio programmes over the years including the archaeology series Origins that took him to many parts of the world in search of stories. From China, his programme introduced listeners to the discovery of the Terracotta Warriors. For several years he also looked after Any Questions? and Any Answers.

His interest in photography led to him being awarded an Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society and he was chairman of the Keynsham Photographic Society for some time. He also published a book on photo techniques and contributed several articles to magazines and newspapers, including Time Life, on archaeological subjects.

A service will be held at Weston Crematorium on Friday, March 30 at 11am.

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