Tribute to John Frost

I first met John Frost in 1960 and we remained firm friends ever since. We met up with John and Joy as often as possible, sharing in many family celebrations, even though we lived a long way apart for many years. Our visit to the Hampton Court Flower Show was an annual treat where we bought more cups of coffee than we did plants. To meet and to chat was all we wanted. When I was asked to say a few words about John I did something John would have enjoyed.

I typed his name into Google. Of course I was offered over six million possibilities. Well I suppose it is not that uncommon a name. So I added the word ‘producer’, the description of himself he most valued. That immediately narrowed it down to a mere one million, seven hundred thousand. But even so my search for our John Frost, our unique John Frederick Frost, was over because there he was, near the top, listed as the producer in 1976 of a television programme entitled ‘Spitfire – 40 years On’, a programme of which he was rightly proud and one that has been repeated more than once.

That programme was made when he was at his peak as a producer in Southampton but his broadcasting career started thirty years earlier. He worked in audience research and in radio for over ten years before arriving in Norwich in 1960 with his wife Joy and baby Peter. He and I worked together on the nightly local television news which had just started. It was where John learnt his trade – directing and editing film and putting out the programme. It was not always easy to find good stories.

This was sleepy Norfolk. The lead story on a good day might be the sugar beet harvest. More often than not it was a minor accident in Kings Lynn – not many hurt. You had to work hard and use your imagination to produce a good programme when there wasn’t much news. John threw himself into the task with his trademark enthusiasm, always full of ideas and constantly turning a sows ear into a silk purse. But he became impatient to get away from News. He started to expand into half hour feature programmes which led to his move to Southampton where he became Editor, Features. He was ideally suited to the job, producing excellent programmes himself and teaching many others to do the same.

In 1981 he was appointed Regional Television Manager for BBC North East and Cumbria, based in Newcastle. In the last few days many people from there have remarked that John ran a very happy ship.

Typical is this tribute from former colleague, Olwyn Hocking – ‘John made such an impact on the television world in our region and so many people individually that his legacy is still strongly felt. He was truly driven by awareness that we only achieve memorable moments on screen by a huge investment of time and caring into the people behind it. He was a canny operator with a big heart ’.

As well as being responsible for the television output for the Region, John had to manage over five years the move into a new broadcasting centre, a £10 million development. He did it with great skill and no fuss. It turned out that he was to be the last such Manager as in 1987 there was a restructuring of the English regions. John retired from the BBC after forty years service. That is a record very rarely achieved these days.

John had always had a strong sense of social duty and he now had the time. His retirement was never going to be a quiet, idle one. His restless nature and his boundless energy led him into a variety of enterprises. He acted as media consultant and producer for Tyne and Wear Development Corporation and organised large sponsorship events such as the Tall Ships Race. He was the founder Chairman of the Royal Television Society’s North East Centre and created the largest RTS Awards Ceremony outside London which is still going strong today. In 1992 he thoroughly deserved being made a Fellow of the Society. He became a Governor and, later, Deputy Chairman of the Newcastle Polytechnic and when it became the University of Northumbria he chaired the Finance Committee. Professor Laing Barden, the first Vice Chancellor, has talked to me about John’s common sense and humour, describing him as a ‘live wire’, lively enough to award him an Honorary Fellowship.

John’s strong personal faith and his fascination with history combined to attract him towards a museum in Jarrow which celebrated the birthplace of the Anglo Saxon monk and scholar, the Venerable Bede. He was fond of the area anyway as his mother had originally come from South Shields. The museum was being developed but it needed money. John had lots of ideas for that and he made use of his large network of contacts in the Region, persuading people to help with exhibitions and events. He and his team raised half a million pounds to turn the site into today’s major tourist attraction, Bede’s World. Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp, the leading archaeologist with the Trust, described John to me as a life enhancing force. And even after moving south to Tangmere he stayed a trustee for another three years.

John certainly knew about the value of money and what it could do if properly directed. And he was always generous with his own, always the first to buy a round or pick up a bill. He was a difficult chap to treat. Many a time I thought I had succeeded in buying him lunch only to find he had crept round the back and bought me pudding and coffee or done a deal with the waitress. In the end, to stop any unseemly squabbling over the credit cards we had an unspoken arrangement, splitting any bill down the middle.

John believed in the NHS, and liked to get involved, from his membership of the North East Ambulance Trust to, more recently, being a Friend of the Tangmere Medical Centre. In the last decade he had to call upon the NHS far too often himself but he could never be a passive patient. He knew every detail of his medication, the proper names of the drugs and how they were spelt, what they contained, what the side effects might be. He wanted to know everything that was going on with his treatment. When he went to see a consultant it was a toss up who learnt the most. For John it was definitely a two way process.

Above all else, John was always quick to praise other people’s achievements, to encourage you to do better, very rarely mentioning his own success. I don’t think I ever heard him say an ill word about anyone and, believe me, in the world of broadcasting that is very rare. He would have been 82 next month. John was always a loving and attentive and supportive husband, father and grandfather and of course, together with his wonderful close knit family, we mourn his going. But we also today celebrate his life and all he meant to us. If you had doubts about anything you were doing you always felt better having talked to John. We will have to manage without him now and we will all be the poorer for it.

Keith S.Clement

17th November 2011