Web Page 30951 3rd September 2023 First Picture: In Fishing Mode

Second Picture: In the shed

Third Picture: How

Fourth Picture: Out Of Towm

Jack Hargreaves OBE (31st December 1911 – 15th March 1994) was a television presenter and writer. He is remembered for appearing on How, a children's programme, which he also conceived, about how things worked or ought to work. It ran from 1966 on Southern Television and networked on ITV until the demise of Southern in 1981. He also was the presenter of the weekly magazine programme Out of Town, first broadcast in 1960 following the success of his series Gone Fishing the previous year. Broadcast on Friday evenings on Southern Television the programme was also taken up by many of the other ITV regions, usually in a Sunday afternoon slot. In 1967, with Ollie Kite he presented Country Boy, a networked children's programme of 20 episodes in which a boy from the city was introduced to the ways of country. Two further series followed in 1969 and 1970. He was involved in the setting up of ITV, and a member of Southern's board of directors, and was employed by the National Farmers' Union, serving on the Nugent Committee (the Defence Lands Committee that investigated which parts of the Ministry of Defence holdings could be returned to private ownership). He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1972 New Year Honours. He was born in London in 1911 to James and Ada Hargreaves, Jack (christened John Herbert) was one of three brothers. The family was rooted in Huddersfield but James Hargreaves based himself partly in London for commercial advantage and to allow his wife the benefit of the capital's midwifery. The brothers attended Merchant Taylors' School, after which Edward and Ronald Hargreaves pursued successful careers in medicine while Jack went to study at the Royal Veterinary College at London University in 1929. On leaving university he earned a living as a copywriter, journalist and script writer for radio and films, and by the late 1930s he had established a reputation for his pioneering approaches to radio broadcasting. the outset of the Second World War, broadcasting was recognised as part of the war effort. His talents in this field meant that he faced being recruited to a restricted post in radio, a reserved occupation. Instead, he joined the Royal Artillery as a gunner, quickly became an NCO, entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. Even so, his reputation as a communicator went ahead of him. He was recruited to the staff of General Montgomery to play a role setting up broadcasting services to allied forces before and after D-Day. He left the army in 1945 with the substantive rank of major, having briefly held the acting rank of lieutenant-colonel.] After the war he worked on Picture Post where his brilliance as a communications manager led to his being recruited to the National Farmers Union, he organised and developed the NFU's Information Department, founding the British Farmer magazine, He loved angling. As an independent member of the Defence Lands Committee 1971–73, Hargreaves made key contributions to the Nugent Report, 1973, reviewing the use of land held by the armed forces for defence purposes. He became of the opinion that one of the best ways to reserve the countryside for its proper purpose was to keep most people out of it. He believed that although agriculture would be preferable, military exercises seemed less harmful in their impact on the environment than its use for the recreational choices. This he shared with his audience, gently repeating that the countryside, insofar as it had a purpose for humans, was to grow their food in sustainable ways. Jack Hargreaves was married, in 1932, to Jeanette Haighler. They had two sons, Mark and Victor; then, after divorce, he married Elisabeth Van de Putte. Two more sons were born – James Stephen in 1946 and Edward John in 1947. That marriage ended in 1948 when he began a relationship with a journalist from Vogue, Barbara Baddeley Living with her until 1963, He became a stepfather to Bay and her brother Simon, Barbara's children. He also had a daughter Polly, born in 1957 as a result of a six-year relationship with his secretary Judy Hogg. In 1965, he married Isobel Hatfield who died four years after her husband on 5 February 1998 and her ashes were scattered with his on Bulbarrow Hill in Dorset, near their home. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com