Arthur Gordon Clough (26 August 1934,

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

– 6 April 1996, London), was an English radio presenter and journalist, primarily known for his work on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

Education

He was educated at

Bolton School Bolton School is an independent day school in Bolton, Greater Manchester. It comprises a co-educational nursery, co-educational infant school (ages 3–7), single sex junior schools (ages 7–11) and single sex senior schools including sixth fo ...

and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read French and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

National service

He spent his

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

monitoring

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

radio traffic in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

, and joined the BBC Russian Service. He was banned from entering the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

as an alleged former spy.

Career

In 1968 he entered domestic journalism and then studio presentation, working on '' The World This Weekend'', '' PM'' and ''

The World at One ''The World at One'', or ''WATO'' ("what-oh") for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, produced by BBC News, which is currently broadcast from 13:00 to 13:45 from Monday to Friday. The programme de ...

''. Aided by his fluency in Russian, he moved back to front-line journalism at the time of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, making a series of award-winning documentary programmes. Clough also covered

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

months after the release of Nelson Mandela, and for a season he presented ''EuroFile'', a magazine programme on

concerning European affairs. He was a question setter for, and the presenter of, ''

Round Britain Quiz ''Round Britain Quiz'' (or ''RBQ'' for short) is a panel game that has been broadcast on BBC Radio since 1947, making it the oldest quiz still broadcast on British radio. It was based on a format called ''Transatlantic Quiz'', a contest betwee ...

''.

Personal life

Clough was married to Carolyn Stafford. They divorced in 1991 but later remarried.

Sources

Obituary in the Independent 9 April 1996 - accessed 2 January 2012

External links

BBC Radio 4 programme entitled ''Tribute to Gordon Clough'' - Imperial War Museum: Clough's report from Leningrad on food queues and shortages in 1991 and the parallels with the siege of Leningrad, 1941-1942
1934 births 1996 deaths People educated at Bolton School Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World Service British radio personalities {{UK-radio-bio-stub