VETERAN BBC radio announcer David Willmott died aged 88 in the early hours of Monday, October 14, after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Mr Willmott joined the BBC in Manchester in 1953 as a studio manager and worked on many television productions.

He met his wife Kate who also worked for the BBC in Manchester and they were married in December 1966. They have two children and four grandchildren.

David most recently lived in Avenue Road, but had lived in Malvern since the early 1980s, in Cowleigh Road, then at two different addresses in Abbey Road.

He was an avid reader of the Malvern Gazette and towards the end of his life regularly volunteered to read the paper for the blind in Malvern.

David was born in Windsor on September 15, 1931. An only child. he was educated at Windsor Boys School, once appeared in a youth production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and spending his spare time working at the Theatre Royal in Windsor.

He first came to Malvern while training as part of his National Service shortly before being posted to Alexandria in Egypt after the Suez crisis. It was here that be began working for British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) in 1950 and after his return to the UK he joined BBC Manchester as a studio manager in 1953. He worked in both radio and television as a drama director. He gave Ray Moore his first job in radio and worked with names as illustrious as Ingrid Bergman, David Frost and Morecambe and Wise, among many others. He also wrote and read an edition of the Morning Story on Radio 4 and regularly read the evening Shipping Forecast. A recording of him reading it from the mid 1970-s is often dug out of the BBC archive to illustrate the heritage of this iconic fixture of British broadcasting to this day.

He was married to Kate in December 1966 and was seconded to Libya for a year in 1969, becoming a BBC Radio 4 announcer

on his return.

After another middle eastern secondment, this time to Dubai in 1978-9 to help set up British speaking TV station Channel 33, he joined Radio 3, regularly presenting the Proms live from the Royal Albert Hall, before rejoining Radio 4 as a continuity announcer. He also presented on Beacon Radio, Wolverhampton, Blue Danube Radio in Vienna and BFBS and taught at Evendine Court school.

A memorial service to celebrate his life will be held at Malvern Priory on Wednesday November 6 at 11:30am.