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| Paul Vaughan obituary | |
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| I first heard the voice in Oxford in the late 1940s during a college production of King John. “Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?” The words were those of Shakespeare’s slimiest monarch, but the voice could have been that of Henry V. It belonged to Paul Vaughan, who has died aged 89. What I heard that night later became known to millions as the “Horizon voice” on BBC2. Bold, articulate, and trustworthy as the Bible, it was the perfect disguise for a royal conman. And although Vaughan, in his many years as a voiceover virtuoso, declared that he would never employ it in the service of tobacco, warfare or the Conservative party, he would have had no difficulty in convincing the wariest of listeners that rattlesnake venom was a wholesome as mother’s milk. | I first heard the voice in Oxford in the late 1940s during a college production of King John. “Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?” The words were those of Shakespeare’s slimiest monarch, but the voice could have been that of Henry V. It belonged to Paul Vaughan, who has died aged 89. What I heard that night later became known to millions as the “Horizon voice” on BBC2. Bold, articulate, and trustworthy as the Bible, it was the perfect disguise for a royal conman. And although Vaughan, in his many years as a voiceover virtuoso, declared that he would never employ it in the service of tobacco, warfare or the Conservative party, he would have had no difficulty in convincing the wariest of listeners that rattlesnake venom was a wholesome as mother’s milk. |
| The voice was his prize accomplishment, in professional use into his 80s. But it was not the only one. A lifelong clarinettist (self-taught from the recordings of Frank Teschemacher) what he most enjoyed was sitting in the midst of an orchestra and contributing to the surrounding waves of sublime sound. His first books were spin-offs from his career as a medical journalist, including a history of the British Medical Association, and a study of the contraceptive pill (The Pill on Trial, 1972). | The voice was his prize accomplishment, in professional use into his 80s. But it was not the only one. A lifelong clarinettist (self-taught from the recordings of Frank Teschemacher) what he most enjoyed was sitting in the midst of an orchestra and contributing to the surrounding waves of sublime sound. His first books were spin-offs from his career as a medical journalist, including a history of the British Medical Association, and a study of the contraceptive pill (The Pill on Trial, 1972). |
| Then in 1994 came Something in Linoleum, a memoir of his upbringing, which won the JR Ackerley prize for literary biography. It was an instant classic, carrying echoes of The Diary of a Nobody, and the poetry of John Betjeman and Philip Larkin, together with elements that were Vaughan’s alone. He followed it the following year with a second instalment, Exciting Times in the Accounts Department, which confirmed that his voice in front of a microphone underwent a striking change when he transferred it to paper. | Then in 1994 came Something in Linoleum, a memoir of his upbringing, which won the JR Ackerley prize for literary biography. It was an instant classic, carrying echoes of The Diary of a Nobody, and the poetry of John Betjeman and Philip Larkin, together with elements that were Vaughan’s alone. He followed it the following year with a second instalment, Exciting Times in the Accounts Department, which confirmed that his voice in front of a microphone underwent a striking change when he transferred it to paper. |
| The second son of George Vaughan, secretary of the British Linoleum Manufacturers’ Association, and his wife, Ada Rose (née Stocks), Vaughan was born in Brixton and moved with the family 10 years later to a Swiss-chalet semi in New Malden on one of the go-ahead new estates on the edge of south-west London, handily positioned for Raynes Park school, which had a lasting influence on his life. The school was the creation of its young headteacher, John Garrett, who set out to spread a sense of intellectual adventure, with the aid of a high-flying staff and a network of prominent names. His friend WH Auden wrote the school song. Garrett brought in a flotilla of star speakers and offered a platform to parents, including George Vaughan, who plunged Paul into ecstasies of humiliated snobbery by following up a prizegiving by TS Eliot with a lecture on linoleum. | The second son of George Vaughan, secretary of the British Linoleum Manufacturers’ Association, and his wife, Ada Rose (née Stocks), Vaughan was born in Brixton and moved with the family 10 years later to a Swiss-chalet semi in New Malden on one of the go-ahead new estates on the edge of south-west London, handily positioned for Raynes Park school, which had a lasting influence on his life. The school was the creation of its young headteacher, John Garrett, who set out to spread a sense of intellectual adventure, with the aid of a high-flying staff and a network of prominent names. His friend WH Auden wrote the school song. Garrett brought in a flotilla of star speakers and offered a platform to parents, including George Vaughan, who plunged Paul into ecstasies of humiliated snobbery by following up a prizegiving by TS Eliot with a lecture on linoleum. |
| Paul went to Oxford in 1943, reading English and French at Wadham College in two spells wrapped around national service in the Royal Engineers, finally emerging with a wartime degree. Afterwards, seeing contemporaries such as Derek Cooper and Alan Brien streaking ahead, and his brother David already launched in New York as a dance historian, he had no idea of what to do. He knew he could write but, with no plan of how to make a living from it, he took a shot in the dark in 1950 and accepted a dead-end job with a pharmaceutical company in Camberwell, where he sat it out for five years – now married to Barbara Prys-Jones, daughter of the poet Arthur Prys-Jones – until transferring to a job at the BMA in Tavistock Square. With no science qualifications he was, at the age of 30, the association’s youngest staff member, but became its chief press officer. | Paul went to Oxford in 1943, reading English and French at Wadham College in two spells wrapped around national service in the Royal Engineers, finally emerging with a wartime degree. Afterwards, seeing contemporaries such as Derek Cooper and Alan Brien streaking ahead, and his brother David already launched in New York as a dance historian, he had no idea of what to do. He knew he could write but, with no plan of how to make a living from it, he took a shot in the dark in 1950 and accepted a dead-end job with a pharmaceutical company in Camberwell, where he sat it out for five years – now married to Barbara Prys-Jones, daughter of the poet Arthur Prys-Jones – until transferring to a job at the BMA in Tavistock Square. With no science qualifications he was, at the age of 30, the association’s youngest staff member, but became its chief press officer. |
| Thanks to Garrett he had acquired the habit of making notes on anything that caught his attention. This paid off in his later writings: for instance in his recollectons of the BMA in Exciting Times, where he conveys the splendours of the Tavistock Square building before chronicling the anti-NHS idiocies of its more self-important members. | Thanks to Garrett he had acquired the habit of making notes on anything that caught his attention. This paid off in his later writings: for instance in his recollectons of the BMA in Exciting Times, where he conveys the splendours of the Tavistock Square building before chronicling the anti-NHS idiocies of its more self-important members. |
| Words took over by degrees, through medical journalism and World Service science programmes, beginning with a “gee-whiz” popular science magazine and reaching a zenith during his time (from 1968) as resident narrator of the BBC’s popular science programme Horizon, where he became known as “the first invisible star of television”. When his first marriage ended in divorce, it was at the BBC that he met the radio producer Pippa Burston, whom he married in 1988. | Words took over by degrees, through medical journalism and World Service science programmes, beginning with a “gee-whiz” popular science magazine and reaching a zenith during his time (from 1968) as resident narrator of the BBC’s popular science programme Horizon, where he became known as “the first invisible star of television”. When his first marriage ended in divorce, it was at the BBC that he met the radio producer Pippa Burston, whom he married in 1988. |
| He joined the team of Kaleidoscope when it began in 1973 as a combined science and arts magazine, though science was soon hived off elsewhere. His lifelong love of music and literature and his conversational sensitivity enabled him to conduct interviews on his own terms; finding the right personal pitch whether talking to an elder statesman or an incoherent reviewer. He was with the programme until its end in 1998. | He joined the team of Kaleidoscope when it began in 1973 as a combined science and arts magazine, though science was soon hived off elsewhere. His lifelong love of music and literature and his conversational sensitivity enabled him to conduct interviews on his own terms; finding the right personal pitch whether talking to an elder statesman or an incoherent reviewer. He was with the programme until its end in 1998. |
| His lasting achievement must remain Something in Linoleum. It is at once a book about being young and hopeful, and an elegy for what was being left behind. It chronicles the arrival of a bright new social experiment and a bright new kind of education. And, with the sight of New Malden losing its utopian shine and the collapse of his parents’ marriage, the book moves as far towards tragic poetry as this fine writer ever came. | His lasting achievement must remain Something in Linoleum. It is at once a book about being young and hopeful, and an elegy for what was being left behind. It chronicles the arrival of a bright new social experiment and a bright new kind of education. And, with the sight of New Malden losing its utopian shine and the collapse of his parents’ marriage, the book moves as far towards tragic poetry as this fine writer ever came. |
| He is survived by Pippa and their two children, Ben and Thom; by the four children of his first marriage, Kate, Tim, Matthew and Lucy; and by nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. | He is survived by Pippa and their two children, Ben and Thom; by the four children of his first marriage, Kate, Tim, Matthew and Lucy; and by nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. |
| • Paul William Vaughan, broadcaster and writer, born 24 October 1925; died 14 November 2014 | • Paul William Vaughan, broadcaster and writer, born 24 October 1925; died 14 November 2014 |
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