Alan Whicker(1921-2013)

The doyen of jet-setting journalists, he was memorably parodied in a Monty Python's Flying Circus ; Absurde, n'est-il pas? (1969) sketch which featured an island full of Whickers, sipping martinis and waiting for the "inevitable interview".

The BBC was still embedded in its civil service ethos which took broadcasting off the air every night between 6 and 7, in case viewing parents had trouble getting their children to bed. Can you imagine? We were then writing the grammar of television so that quaint, hour long toddlers' truce of 1957 did not long survive Tonight (1957)'s arrival. Soon, viewers were being treated as grown-ups, where the next Tonight (1957) was always tomorrow night and you could make your own house rules in your own home.