Lionel James Gamlin (30 April 1903 – 16 October 1967)Lionel Gamlin at IMDb
Retrieved 29 October 2012. was a British

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

and

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...

announcer and presenter, and actor, who was known for his work for the BBC and British Movietone News between the 1930s and 1950s.

Life and career

He was born in

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liv ...

, and started on a career in business before joining a local

repertory company A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawing ...

and became a teacher at his old school before studying at Fitzwilliam House,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. At university he became President of the

Cambridge Union The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1815, it is the oldest continuously running debati ...

in 1930 and editor of ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

''. He returned to teaching and occasional work as an actor, before in 1936 being offered a post by the BBC as an announcer. He provided the commentary in 1940 for both the RAF documentary '' Squadron 992'' and the GPO Film Unit documentary ''War and Order'', and compered the 1944 variety show ''Rainbow Round the Corner''. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, he was regarded as "a voice of authority, the tone of war and peace, the man whom people heard in the cinema on the

s." In 1946 he co-wrote a humorous book with Anthony Gilbert, ''Don’t Be Afreud! A Short Guide to Youth Control (The Book of the Weak)'', and in 1947 published ''You're on the Air: A Book about Broadcasting''. He also chose the

stage name A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...

of John Theobald Clarke, known as the actor and director

Bryan Forbes Bryan Forbes CBE (; born John Theobald Clarke; 22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist described as a "Renaissance man"Falk Q. . BAFTA. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2013 and ...

. In the late 1940s and 1950s he worked on BBC radio, presenting and conducting interviews on '' In Town Tonight'', presenting '' Top of the Form'', and producing children's programmes. He became "a stalwart of

light entertainment Light entertainment encompasses a broad range of television and radio programming that includes comedies, variety shows, game shows, quiz shows and the like. In Great Britain In the early days of the BBC virtually all broadcast entertainment w ...

broadcasting", was a castaway on ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a "castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usua ...

'' in 1955, and lived close to

Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The ma ...

. He played little part in the growth of television broadcasting in the 1950s, although he did share interviewing duties with

Eamonn Andrews Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ A ...

on the film review programme ''Current Release''. Su Holmes, ''British TV and Film Culture in the 1950s: Coming to a TV Near You'', p. 90
/ref> In his later years he worked as an occasional actor on such programmes as '' Dixon of Dock Green'' and '' Adam Adamant Lives!'', and also as a

valet A valet or varlet is a male servant who serves as personal attendant to his employer. In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term "valet ...

. His last film role was in '' The Whisperers''. Gamlin was unmarried, and died in 1967 aged 64.

Posthumous allegations

In 2012, reports in the media relating to the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal referred to Gamlin. Author Andrew O'Hagan alleged in the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review o ...

'' that, during the 1950s, Gamlin used a secret venue in

Fitzrovia Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urban ...

where he and another senior member of staff at the BBC regularly had sex with young boys.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamlin, Lionel 1903 births 1967 deaths English radio personalities People from Birkenhead Presidents of the Cambridge Union