Anna Ford

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Anna Ford
Born (1943-10-02) 2 October 1943 (age 81)
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England
Occupation Journalist, television presenter, newsreader
Spouse(s) Alan Bittles (divorced), Mark Boxer (deceased 1988)
Partner(s) Jon Snow (1970s), David Scott (2000)
Children 2 daughters

Anna Ford (born 2 October 1943) is an English former journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She first worked as a researcher, news reporter and later newsreader for Granada Television, ITN, and the BBC. Ford helped launch the first British breakfast television programme TV-am. She retired from broadcast news presenting in April 2006 and was a non-executive director for Sainsbury's until the end of 2012. Ford now lives in her home town of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.[1]

Early life

Ford was born in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire to parents who were both West End actors. Her father had declined an offer from Samuel Goldwyn to work in Hollywood, and her mother had worked with Alec Guinness.[2] Her father John later became ordained as an Anglican priest and took Ford and her four brothers to live at Eskdale in the Lake District. She went to primary school at St. Ursula's School, Wigton, then to Wigton Grammar School. After her father became the parish priest at St Martin's church in Brampton she moved to the White House Grammar School.

Ford received a BA degree in economics from the Victoria University of Manchester and was president of the university's students' union from 1966 to 1967.[3]

Career

Ford worked as a teacher for four years, including teaching Provisional IRA men at the H-Blocks at Long Kesh for two years.[2] She was later an Open University social studies tutor in Belfast for two years. Ford was thirty by the time she joined Granada Television as a researcher in 1974. Initially, she was told she was too old to be a newsreader, but became a reporter and newsreader on Granada Reports.[4] She joined the BBC in January 1977, but only after several months obtaining security clearance from MI5 because she was then living with a former communist,[5] and worked on Man Alive and Tomorrow's World.

In February 1978, Ford moved to ITN as its first female newsreader, faced with quickly abandoned legal threats from the BBC for breaking her contract.[6] Future colleague Reginald Bosanquet said at the time: "I have never been averse to working with ladies... I do not know Anna but I have heard that she is a very competent and professional lady."[6] Ford though remains fond of his memory, and they formed a good professional relationship.[2] In 1981 she left to help launch TV-am. However fierce competition from the BBC's casually styled Breakfast Time resulted in a relaunch which was perceived as "dumbing-down" of the station, and only three months after the station's launch, Ford was dismissed from the presenting team.[citation needed] Ford was involved in an incident at a party in which she threw her wine over Jonathan Aitken to express her outrage over his involvement in her sacking from the channel.[7]

Ford rejoined the BBC in 1986, becoming part of the presentation team for both BBC One's Six O'Clock News and the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in 1989. From 1999, she fronted the re-launched lunchtime One O'Clock News.

In 1996, Ford was accused of bias when hosting a discussion on treatment of men during divorce cases on Today programme. The three-minute discussion featured feminist barrister Elizabeth Woodcraft and Neil Lyndon, a critic of feminism, with Ford allowing Woodcraft to speak for more than two minutes of the three-minute feature. Lyndon received an apology for his treatment on the programme and Ford, herself a feminist,[8] was reprimanded by Rod Liddle, then the programme's editor.[9]

On 30 October 2005, Ford announced her plans to retire from broadcasting in April 2006 to pursue other interests while she "still has the interest and energy".[10] She also talked about ageism, stating:[11]

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I might have been shovelled off into News 24 to the sort of graveyard shift, and I wouldn't have wanted to do that because it wouldn't have interested me. I think when you reflect on the people who they're (the BBC) bringing in and they're all much younger. I think they are being brought in because they are younger. I think that's specifically one of the reasons why they're being employed."

On 27 April 2006, she said farewell to the viewers and signed off by introducing a compilation of clips of her career. On 2 May 2006, J Sainsbury plc, the UK supermarket group, announced Ford was joining the company as a non-executive director.[12] She is the Chair of Sainsbury's board's Corporate Responsibility Committee.[13]

Academia

On 17 December 2001, she was installed as Chancellor of the Victoria University of Manchester. When the Victoria University of Manchester merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) on 1 October 2004 to create the new University of Manchester, she became its Co-Chancellor along with Sir Terry Leahy (the former Chancellor of UMIST). (Since August 2008 Tom Bloxham has been the sole Chancellor.) On 22 April 2006, Ford received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews, nominated by Sir Menzies Campbell.

Personal life

Ford had an early marriage to Alan Bittles, although this dissolved[when?] before her television career and, in the late 1970s, she was briefly engaged to Jon Snow, a colleague at ITN.[14][15] She married the magazine editor and cartoonist Mark Boxer, with whom she had two daughters, Claire and Kate, before he died of a brain tumour in 1988 at their home in Brentford, Greater London.[citation needed]

She was briefly engaged in 2000, to former astronaut David Scott.[16] Ford became the subject of news stories in August 2001, when she lost a high profile court case. She claimed unsuccessfully that photographs of her in a bikini with David Scott, by a press photographer in Majorca, with a powerful zoom lens and published in the British media, constituted an invasion of her privacy.[4]

In a letter to The Guardian in February 2010, Ford accused Martin Amis (a friend of her late husband Mark Boxer) of having neglected his duties as godfather to her daughter Claire and also having been disrespectful to Boxer at the time of his death.[17] Amis rejected her allegations in a reply, but accepted that he had been remiss in his duties as godfather.[18]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Bill Hagerty "Anna Ford: Try a little tenderness", British Journalism Review, 18:3, 2007, p.9-16
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Anna Ford: Hardy perennial BBC News – 3 August 2001
  5. ↑ Mark Hollingshurst and Richard Norton Taylior Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, London: Hogarth Press, 1988, p.106; David Leigh and Paul Lashmar "The Blacklist in Room 105", The Observer, 18 August 1985, p.9
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "1978: Ford makes her ITN debut", BBC On This Day, 13 February
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Newsreader Ford retiring from BBC BBC News – 30 October 2005
  11. ↑ Anna Ford talks tough on ageism BBC News – 9 April 2006
  12. ↑ "J. Sainsbury Appoints Famous U.K. Newsreader To Board" Forbes.com – 2 May 2006
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ The root of Martin Amis's anger The Guardian – 20 February 2010
  18. ↑ Martin Amis: a response The Guardian – 22 February 2010

External links

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