Advertisement

Frank Bough: Calming presenter of Grandstand and trailblazer of breakfast television

Man in the hot seat: Bough on the set of ‘Nationwide’ (Rex)
Man in the hot seat: Bough on the set of ‘Nationwide’ (Rex)

Frank Bough, who has died aged 87, for 20 years was one of the “faces of BBC television”, displaying a calm, self-assured manner that made him ideal for hosting live programmes where anything could go wrong – and often did.

He first made his name on the Saturday afternoon show Grandstand in the 1970s, sitting in the studio, seamlessly linking a wide range of live and recorded sports action from venues around the globe. During almost five hours on the air in a single programme, he was also adept at constantly updating viewers with the latest football scores, read direct off the chattering teleprinter.

These skills proved a vital tool when he was chosen to become Michael Barratt’s co-presenter of Nationwide (1972-82), the early evening news magazine presented from London but bringing to viewers stories and presenters from BBC studios across the United Kingdom.

The programme, which had been launched with Barratt at the helm in 1969, was much maligned by television critics, who seized on the gaffes that invariably dogged what at the time was a technically complex operation. It was common, especially in its first few years, for sound or vision – or both – to be lost as viewers were transported around the country to stories of vicars refereeing women’s wrestling matches and other quirky items following the regular regional news bulletins.

Bough was added when the show was increased from three to five evenings a week – at the end of a long haul hosting the BBC’s 1972 Olympics coverage. “After 100 hours of that, they may have to wheel me into the Nationwide studio in a bath chair,” he said, adding: “A wave comes along, looks like carrying me along with it in a forward direction, so I travel with it.”

He continued on the same wave for 10 years while still fronting Grandstand (which he hosted from 1967 to 1982) on Saturdays, although his first Nationwide programme was a baptism of fire. Due to interview two pensioners in the Birmingham studio who were part of a planned senior citizens’ march on parliament, Bough ploughed through a long introduction, only to be told that the pair were not there. He was reported to have exploded at the production team afterwards, saying: “I looked a fool but, more importantly, the programme looked inefficient and that really upset me.”

Barratt left Nationwide in 1977, the year in which Bough’s star status was confirmed with a guest appearance on The Morecambe and Wise Show, performing a song and dance routine – South Pacific’s “There is Nothing Like a Dame” – in sailor uniform alongside other BBC presenters such as Michael Aspel. By then, Nationwide had established itself as a piece of the television furniture, with a growing team of presenters that included Bob Wellings, Valerie Singleton and Sue Lawley, and gaining audiences of up to 10 million in a three-channel age.

Not entirely unflappable, though, Bough sometimes came unstuck when technical faults forced him to ad-lib. Once, presenting a final, filmed item from the Nationwide allotment, outside the studio, he was told that it had been lost and there was no replacement. With five minutes to fill, he launched into a discussion with Lawley, who was in the studio, about an item that had appeared earlier in the programme, but only in the southeast, baffling most viewers. Then, facing the camera, he told viewers: “You think I’m in complete control of this crisis, don’t you? Well, I’m not.”

Various format changes signalled a descent for the programme. Fortunately for Bough, he was able to leave the sinking ship eight months before Nationwide was finally axed, when he became the natural choice to host Breakfast Time, which launched the BBC’s breakfast-television service in January 1983, beating its TV-am rivals on ITV to the screen by two weeks.

Teamed with former newscaster Selina Scott, both sitting on a sofa, Bough – complete with woollen jumper – brought a relaxed style to the programme, which initially helped it to popular victory over the more serious Good Morning Britain, until a change to more lightweight presenters and the introduction of Roland Rat saved the ITV breakfast station and eventually reversed its fortunes.

Bough left Breakfast Time in 1988, shortly before the News of the World shattered his cosy, homely image with revelations that he had resigned from the broadcaster after attending sex and drugs parties. He admitted to snorting cocaine with prostitutes while watching couples have sex, saying: “I was introduced to cocaine by a woman who I later discovered was a prostitute. During the evening, she encouraged me to sniff this white substance which she told me would make me feel better. It certainly did. I’d never felt so relaxed. At first, it seemed the perfect way to cope with the stresses and strains of life. But, in fact, it led me into a world I never knew existed. I found myself at parties where everyone was spaced out and people openly had sex in front of other guests.”

Bough blamed his early morning routine and “exhaustion”, which led him to stay at a flat in London when he was presenting Breakfast Time four days a week, 30 miles away from his family in Berkshire. Television work quickly dried up but, just as he appeared to be making a comeback, new revelations rocked his professional and personal lives. In 1992, photographs were published of him visiting a sadomasochistic sex parlour where he was reported to have undergone sexual humiliation with a rubber-clad “Miss Whiplash”. His wife, Nesta, continued to stand by the television presenter but admitted that she had considered leaving him. Bough himself confessed: “I feel exceedingly stupid. I bitterly regret many of the things in my life and, if only I could undo them, I would. I have been weak and I have been silly.”

Francis Joseph Bough was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in 1933 to Annie (née Moulton) and Austin Bough, an upholsterer.

He grew up in a terraced house in the Fenton district of the city and, at a young age, enjoyed being taken to Stoke City’s football matches by an uncle when the club was in the First Division, then the top flight of English football.

When he was six, after his father lost his job and sought work elsewhere, the family moved to Shropshire and Bough later attended Oswestry Boys’ High School. He gained an MA in history from Merton College, Oxford, where he was awarded a football Blue and played as centre-half in the university’s annual fixture against Cambridge at Wembley. On graduating, he joined ICI as a management trainee in Billingham.

While doing his national service with the Royal Tank Regiment, Bough received a call from Gerald Sinstadt, then of British Forces Broadcasting, asking if he could help with the radio commentary on a football match. After a brief return to ICI, Bough set his sights on broadcasting and, in 1962, landed a job with the BBC as a sports commentator, before becoming host of the BBC North East television news magazine Home at Six (1962-64), based in Newcastle.

After being spotted by the BBC’s London bosses, Bough became the presenter of the national programme Sportsview (1964-68), also beginning an 18-year run as host of BBC Sports Review of the Year (1964-82).

Following his long stints on Nationwide and Breakfast Time, he hosted the BBC travel show Holiday (1987-88) and, after more than a year’s unemployment in the wake of the first revelations about his private life, he staged a comeback as presenter of the weekly regional show 6 O’Clock Live (1989-92), for the London ITV station LWT, and The Frank Bough Interview (1990) on Sky. He also hosted ITV’s Rugby World Cup 91 coverage.

Following the 1992 revelations, he found a new home in radio at the London news and information stations LBC (1992-94) and News Talk (1994-96), with a weekday-morning current affairs phone-in show. However, apart from presenting Travel Live on the Travel Channel in the late 1990s, he never worked regularly in television again.

In 2001, Bough underwent a liver transplant after having cancer diagnosed. Five years later, when invited to gathering of television sports presenters and commentators from down the years, he declined, saying: “I’m very sorry – I won’t be able to attend. I retired from public life 10 years ago and won’t change my mind.”

He won the Bafta Richard Dimbleby Award in 1976, for his contribution to factual television, and his autobiography, Cue Frank!, was published four years later. He was also the author of Frank Bough’s Breakfast Book (1984), going behind the scenes of Breakfast Time.

Bough is survived by Nesta (née Howells), whom he married in 1959, and their three sons, David, Stephen and Andrew.

Frank Bough, television presenter, born 15 January 1933, died 21 October 2020

Read more

Terry Dobson: TV editor who broke the news of JFK’s shooting to the UK

Emyr Humphreys: One of the most courageous novelists of post-war Wales

Spencer Davis: Driving force behind No 1 hit ‘Keep on Running’