In the 1970s and 80s it was hard to miss the innumerable television documentary series produced by Howard Smith, who has died aged 80. His prodigious output typified his passionate commitment to classic BBC public service ideals.
I knew Howard for more than 45 years, as colleague and friend in the BBC Further Education department,. He was a wise and handsome man who carried himself with a quiet distinction. Behind a guarded facade was a gentle warmth and kindness, with an irreverent sense of humour. He loved medieval history and once sent me a Christmas card reproducing an illuminated manuscript showing a saint blessing a king. Howard reckoned the man’s two raised fingers looked suspiciously like a V-sign.
He was born in Upminster, Essex, to Ted Smith, a chartered accountant, and his wife, Edna, a domestic science teacher. Howard gained a choral scholarship at Winchester college in 1947 before doing national service with the Royal Hampshire Regiment, serving as a platoon commander in Malaya.
In 1954 he won a scholarship to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he acted and directed in Footlights while attaining a first class history degree. He married Jane Howes in 1958 and they had three children, Matthew, Adam and Eleanor. The marriage ended in divorce in 1984.
Howard joined the BBC as a trainee in 1962, rising to executive producer. He produced series on the US, India, Japan, the Middle East, the cold war, Nato, British politics and the media, but his greatest achievement was Ireland – Some Episodes from Her Past (1972), a nuanced 10-part exploration of the roots of the Troubles. He also wrote the accompanying book, and the whole project was critically well-received, north and south of the border.
After retiring from the BBC in 1990, Howard became a highly popular senior lecturer in broadcasting studies at Leeds University.
Howard was always great fun, relishing the vagaries of human nature without ever being malicious or belittling. He had huge intellectual integrity and fair-minded openness to a remarkable range of viewpoints. He formed an enduring and loving relationship with a former BBC colleague, Marion Allinson, and lived contentedly in Lothersdale in North Yorkshire for the last 20 years of his life.
Howard is survived by his children and two grandchildren, Zoe and Lauren, and by Marion.
