Bob Friend, My Friend
Matthew Lorenzo pays tribute to award winning journalist Bob Friend, who died three years ago.
21 Sep 2011, 21:41
Bob Friend - Missed by us all
So for those who knew him, and especially for those who didn’t, here are few reminiscences. Bob was one of the funniest men I ever met. We were partners though the early Sky days, which began in February 1989, and stayed mates on and off screen for 20 years.
I’ll always remember him for the laughs. But that was just a part of him. He was a BBC reporter in Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and a long term correspondent in Australia; Japan and New York. The BBC Director General Mark Thompson called him the finest journalist the BBC had ever produced. That’s not a bad tribute. But it doesn’t mention pay reference to the laughs, and laughter was part of Bob’s stock in trade.
My favourite Bob story concerned a Saturday morning shift in the very early days of Sky News. Because news access was tight and crews were even tighter, studio interviews tended to run a little longer back then, especially at the weekend. For reasons I've never discovered. Ian Anderson, the flute playing lead singer of Jethro Tull, had been booked to appear that morning. And Bob, who knew as much about rock music as he did about nuclear fission, was in line to interview him. For 15 minutes.
The newsroom went quiet in anticipation. Bob started well and neatly avoided the music questions by going straight to Anderson's other love - salmon fishing. Bob was always good with animals and they talked for ages about fish, how they're caught, what colour they are, whether they last long out of water, can they talk? That sort of thing.
Bob was not good at remembering names. Five minutes into the interview he started calling Anderson "Jethro". The rock singer thought he was mucking about and smiled politely as Bob ploughed on. Oblivious.
After 15 minutes of talking about fish Bob got the order to wind things up. Which he did, almost straight away: "Well that's been fascinating but I'm afraid time is against us. Vic Reeves, thank you very much."
No one, not even Bob, knows where Vic Reeves came from. Mr Anderson left with a quizzical smile on his face. He wasn't the only one.
Names were always a problem for Bob. If he had to read anything he couldn't pronounce he would just leave it out. This meant numerous world leaders went without a single mention on his shift. Unless they had what he considered to be funny names. There was a Chinese leader whose name sounded very much like "Donkey." He got more mentions than anyone else because Bob could then do donkey noises during the VTs. And sometimes after the VTs to the consternation of his co-presenter. There was a car crash once involving two foreign dignitaries. Bob took one look at their names and decided there was no way he could pronounce them. So he left them out, adding, with a touch of genius, that their names had been withheld because their families had yet to be informed.
I worked with him on the morning shift for about three years. I'd come in and read the sports bulletin about nine times a day. Despite this he frequently forgot my name. In the end he took to introducing me as "Shirley from Orpington." Not sure where he got Shirley from but Orpington was a put down, even though I'd never even been to Orpington. Bob was very proud of having come from Royal Tunbridge Wells. Orpington was the wrong side of the tracks.
Bob's favourite story about Bob concerned some late breaking news one morning on Sky. A wire story reported David Coleman, doyen of British sports commentators, had suffered a heart attack. The Australian producers who ran the place back then were desperately keen on anything late or breaking and shoved me into the studio to interrupt Bob and give him the news.
Bob, with an unusually serious look on his face, asked me what had happened. I announced to the world that David Coleman was fighting for his life and tried to embellish the one line in front of me with as much detail as I could remember from watching Grandstand quite a lot. Luckily sport was not one of Bob's strengths and he let me slide out of the studio without further questions.
Half an hour later another wire story broke, this time playing down the seriousness of Coleman's condition. I was shoved back into the studio to spread the good news. Again, Bob managed some gravitas in introducing me.
"Thank You Bob. Well I'm happy to say the news about David Coleman is that he hasn't in fact suffered a heart attack as previously reported. He has, in fact, suffered a severe case of shingles."
At which point Bob burst into laughter. Shoulders heaving, high pitched giggles the lot. One never knew when one was going to hit one of Bob's trigger words. Sheep would always do it, Chinese people called Donkey, and, apparently any mention of the word shingles.
The Aussie producer was furious. He'd been expecting ten minutes of shingles discussion at this point. After the break Bob was ordered to try again. But Bob said he would have to do it his own way. He said he could ask the questions but he couldn't look at me for the answers. Not without laughing. It was agreed Bob would go ahead with the interview, but would turn his back when he’d finished each question - as soon as I started to speak.
It might have worked, had someone bothered to tell the vision mixer. Which is why somewhere in the Sky vaults, you will see me talking about football and shingles to a pair of heaving shoulder blades. The idiots kept us in a two shot for the whole stupid exchange. I don't suppose it could happen nowadays. But it would be fun if it ever did.
On Friday a few of us will be meeting for lunch, to swap stories and raise a few glasses to the great man. Several hours later we’ll stagger out in time to miss the last train home and prepare to face the wrath of our partners. The following morning our heads will wreak revenge, but we’ll have shared some laughs getting there. It’s what Bob would have wanted.
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