Radio 4 presenter Nick Clarke dies at 58

Published Thursday 23 November 2006 at 18:00 by Liz Thomas

Nick Clarke, the popular presenter of Radio 4’s World at One, has died aged 58 after being battling cancer for a year.

Colleagues and politicians have paid tribute to the news man known for his “forensic” style of journalism. A tumour was found in his leg in November last year and having made an initial recovery after an operation and radiotherapy he was back at work in August. However in the past few weeks his health had deteriorated.

BBC director of radio and music Jenny Abramsky, who used to edit The World at One, said: “Nick was the consummate radio broadcaster. He was rigorous, fair and polite. He was tough but he was also warm. He had a warmth that made listeners feel he was their champion and their friend. He was a very, very nice man and he was a brave man. We will all miss him enormously.”

Clarke began his career on the Yorkshire Evening Post in 1970 and later joined the BBC as a regional reporter and industrial correspondent. He went on to work on the Money Programme and Newsnight, as well as Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.

Shadow home secretary David Davis MP said of the highly-respected journalist: “He would see right to the point. He would see the weakness in any argument. He helped make The World at One one of the most fundamental programmes of the BBC. An interview with Nick Clarke was something you prepared for properly and treated seriously.”

Meanwhile newscaster Peter Snow, who worked on Newsnight, said: “Nick was a wonderful friend. On Newsnight he was always a wonderful interviewer. But we had to wait for radio until Nick found his place right at the top of the broadcasting profession. He was modest, funny and enormously good company.”

Clarke had created a radio diary of his battle with cancer, with the help of his wife and two young children, which was broadcast over the summer.

Simon Elmes, who produced the Nick Clarke audio diary programme Fighting to be Normal, said: “Until making the documentary about his illness, Fighting to be Normal, earlier this year, I had only ever known Nick as a wonderful voice on the radio and a BBC party acquaintance. But working closely with him I felt the searing incisiveness of his journalistic intelligence, his fearsome honesty, not least about himself and his condition and - just as pervasive - his wry, often dark, sense of humour.”