Oswestry Oswestry Oswestry ' onMouseout='HidePop("79815")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Shropshire">Shropshire
Shropshire , alternatively known as Salop or abbreviated, in print only, Shrops, is a county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Wales to the west. Shropshire is one of England's most rural and sparsely populated counties with a population density of 91/km²...
(not to be confused with the older independent
Oswestry SchoolOswestry School is a co-educational independent school, located in the town of Oswestry, Shropshire, England. Founded in 1407 by David Holbache and his wife Gwenwhyvver Holbache, it is the second oldest non-church school in England....
), and at
Merton College, OxfordMerton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
, reputedly being one of the last generation of undergraduates to be awarded a fourth class degree. He played
footballAssociation football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players using a spherical ball...
for the university against Cambridge, and performed his
national serviceNational service is a common name for mandatory or voluntary government service programs . National service was common in the 20th century, and many young people spent one or more years in such programs...
in the
Royal Tank RegimentThe Royal Tank Regiment is an armoured regiment of the British Army. It was formerly known as the Tank Corps and the Royal Tank Corps. It is part of the Royal Armoured Corps and is made up of two operational regiments, the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment...
.
Career
He joined the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
as an anchorman and reporter and in 1964 he began presenting the
BBC Sports Review of the YearThe BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of one titular award. Several new awards have been introduced, and , eight awards are presented. The oldest of these are the Team of the Year and...
, which he would host for eighteen years. He also presented
Sportsview, and in 1968 the BBC's flagship Saturday afternoon sports programme
GrandstandGrandstand is a British television sport programme. Broadcast between 1958 and 2007, it is one of the BBC's longest running sports shows, alongside BBC Sports Personality of the Year.Its first presenter was Peter Dimmock...
. He went on to present the early evening news programme,
NationwideNationwide was a BBC News and Current affairs television series broadcast on BBC One each weekday following the early evening news. It followed a magazine format, combining political analysis and discussion with consumer affairs, light entertainment and sports reporting. It ran from 9 September...
. This made him one of the most familiar faces on British television throughout the 1970s.
In 1977 Bough was memorably a guest on the
Morecambe and WiseEric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, usually referred to as Morecambe and Wise, were a British comic double act, working in variety, radio, film and most successfully in television. Their partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe's death in 1984. They have been described as "the most illustrious, and...
ChristmasChristmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days. The nativity of Jesus, which is the basis for the anno Domini...
special, performing a song and dance routine in a sailor's outfit with the likes of
Eddie WaringEdward Marsden Waring was a British rugby league coach, commentator and television presenter....
and
Barry NormanBarry Leslie Norman, CBE is an English novelist, impresario, film critic and media personality.-Early life:Norman, the son of film director Leslie Norman, was educated at a state primary school and at the Highgate School, a boys' independent school in north London...
, among others. The programme's recorded audience figures remain a British record.
He was the main presenter of the BBC's coverage of the
1978 World Cup finalsThe 1978 FIFA World Cup, the 11th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in Argentina between 1 June and 25 June. Argentina was chosen as hosts by FIFA in July 1966. The 1978 World Cup was won by Argentina who beat the Netherlands 3-1 after extra time in the final...
in Argentina, and was the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
correspondent at
GuildfordGuildford is the county town of Surrey, England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...
for the Election 79 programme.
He was a roving holidaymaker in the BBC's
Holiday programme; and made history as the first presenter of the BBC's inaugural breakfast television programme,
Breakfast TimeBreakfast Time was British television's first national breakfast show, beating ITV's TV-am to the air by two weeks.The show was revolutionary for the time. It mixed hard news with accessible features, creating a cosy feel, with sofas and bright colours — a stark contrast to the Open University...
with
Selina ScottSelina Scott is a British newsreader, journalist, television producer and presenter.- Background and early life :Scott was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1951, the eldest of five children...
. He left Breakfast Time at the end of 1987, moving on to be the main anchor for the BBC's
Holiday programme for the next year. When allegations about his private life surfaced, he was dropped by the BBC and moved to LWT (part of the ITV network) where he fronted a Friday evening magazine programme. At the same time, he had a short lived interview programme on Sky TV.
In the early 1990s he was a presenter on London's
LBCLBC Radio operates two London-based radio stations, with news and talk formats. LBC was Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, providing a service of news and information to London. It began broadcasting on 8 October 1973, a week ahead of Capital Radio...
radio, staying on for the launch of London News Talk and moving to the News 97.3 service where he remained until 1996. He then presented Travel Live for the cable channel Travel.
Personal life
He married Nesta Howells (grandniece of
Rees HowellsRees Howells was the founder of The Bible College of Wales.Howells was born in Brynamman in Carmarthenshire, Wales. When he was 12 years old he left school and worked in a tin mill and coal mine. He was affected by the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival.He and his wife were later missionaries in Africa...
) after leaving the army in 1959. They have three children, David, Stephen and Andrew.
Bough had a colourful private life which involved taking
cocaineCocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system and an appetite suppressant...
and wearing
lingerieLingerie is a term for fashionable and notionally alluring undergarments. It derives from the French word linge, "washables" — as in faire le linge, "do the laundry" — and ultimately from lin for washable linen, the fabric from which European undergarments were made before the general introduction...
at sex parties. The cocaine allegations almost ended his television career, although he did briefly return to present
ITVITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK...
's coverage of the 1991
Rugby World CupThe Rugby World Cup is the premier international rugby union competition. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Rugby Board , and is contested by the men's national teams. The inaugural tournament was held in 1987, hosted by both Australia and New Zealand, and is...
. He also made headlines in 1992, when his visits to an S&M prostitute's Welbeck Street flat were made known to the tabloid press by one of the women regularly employed there as a receptionist.
In 1993, after his activities were regularly ridiculed in
monologueA monologue is an extended uninterrupted speech by a character in a drama. The character may be speaking his or her thoughts aloud, directly addressing another character, or speaking to the audience, especially the former. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media .Monologuing is...
s by
Angus DeaytonGordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and television presenter. He is best-known as the former presenter of the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, a job from which he was sacked in October 2002 after a second round of tabloid allegations about his personal...
on
Have I Got News For YouHave I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been running since 1990...
, Bough was invited on to the programme as a guest and agreed. He was not ridiculed by Deayton this time, although
Ian HislopIan David Hislop is a British satirist, writer, broadcaster and editor of the magazine Private Eye. He has appeared on many radio and television programmes, most notably as a team captain on the BBC current affairs quiz Have I Got News for You.-Early life:Hislop was born in Mumbles, Swansea in...
and
Jo BrandJosephine "Jo" Grace Brand is a British stand-up comedian.-Career:Brand's mother was a social worker, and Brand herself worked as a psychiatric nurse at the South London Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital until the mid-1980s...
made light-hearted comments when a picture of a woman's legs in stockings were shown.
Angus DeaytonGordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and television presenter. He is best-known as the former presenter of the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, a job from which he was sacked in October 2002 after a second round of tabloid allegations about his personal...
was himself the subject of an alleged sex scandal in 2002 and suffered similar treatment to Bough.
From 1994 he was a regular member of the Windsor based choir, The Royal Free Singers.
Bough had a
liverThe liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals; it has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
transplantOrgan transplant is the moving of an organ from one body to another , for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or failing organ with a working one from the donor site. Organ donors can be living or deceased...
in 2001 after
cancerCancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis...
was found and now lives in retirement in
HolyportHolyport is a village in the civil parish of Bray, about 2 miles south of Maidenhead in the English county of Berkshire.-Misconceptions:...
,
BerkshireBerkshire is a county in the South East of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1958, and Letters...
.
In 2009, he returned to television to contribute to a programme looking back on
Nationwide, which was broadcast on BBC Four.
External links