BROADCASTING ROYALTY

For almost five decades, Nicholas Witchell was a familiar face on Britain’s TV screens, reporting on some of the biggest stories of our age. Now retired from broadcasting he has led the development of a memorial to servicemen killed in the D-Day landings.

Nicholas Witchell (Law 1975) has a very modest take on his stellar career: “If I’m remembered for anything, it will be for being described by the future King as an awful man, and reading the news while sitting on a protester."

The famous incident with the then Prince Charles came just before his marriage to Camilla. “The whole purpose of that photo call in the icy surroundings of Klosters was for William and Harry to say they were looking forward to the wedding. So I asked them exactly that question – the subtext of which of course is: ‘how do you feel about your father marrying the woman who ruined your mother’s life?’

“William gave an answer that wasn’t at all the endorsement we were hoping for, and I could see Charles getting redder and muttering something. It was only later when we listened to the tape we could hear him say ‘I can’t bear that man, he’s awful’. And I thought, ‘he means me’.”

The other incident came in 1988 when the studio was invaded by women protesting against new laws restricting LGBT rights: “I ended up sitting on one of them, live on air.” It was a moment immortalised in the Daily Mirror headline Beeb Man Sits On Lesbian.

“Now, everybody just talks to me about those two things,” he laughs.

Nicholas’s career journey began in Leeds. “I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, and was accepted to a place at Leeds which had – and still has – one of the best law faculties in the country.” He soon realised it was a mistake: “I enjoyed parts of it, criminal law particularly, but I also found some of it terribly tedious.”

Writing for the Leeds Student newspaper proved a welcome refuge: “I quickly realised that I enjoyed this whole notion of being a journalist. Leeds Student was a proper hot metal tabloid and I ended up on a sabbatical year as editor. By the time I graduated, I’d lost all interest in becoming a lawyer.

“Leeds Student set me on the course for my future professional life.”

The seeds had perhaps been sown a few years earlier: “I’d written a school project about the mystery of Loch Ness and that involved going up there with two school friends. Though I didn’t realise it at the time, what fired my journalistic instincts was meeting people and asking them what had they seen in Loch Ness. I actually became convinced there were unknown creatures underwater.”

While he was still at Leeds, Nicholas’s book The Loch Ness Story was published, though he now expresses some embarrassment about it: “I long ago reached the conclusion that there’s nothing there, but I'm still mystified as to what it was that all those decent, honest people I spoke to actually saw. They weren’t publicity-seekers at all, and they certainly believed it.”

After his sabbatical, Nicholas joined the BBC graduate training scheme, learning the basics of the profession while working on a series of attachments in radio and television, notably with BBC Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles.

He reported on one of the conflict’s most notorious days – 27 August 1979, when Lord Mountbatten was assassinated at Mullaghmore and 18 British soldiers were killed at Warrenpoint. During the Falklands War, Nicholas reported daily from the Ministry of Defence.

His switch to becoming a news anchor came almost by accident: “I was in London working as a duty reporter one weekend, and newsreader Jan Leeming called in sick. They decided I’d better do it.” Within months, he’d been teamed up with Sue Lawley for the launch of the Six O’Clock News.

“I remember doing the first news flashes on the loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge, the Hungerford Massacre and then Lockerbie.

“At these terrible moments you have to deliver it as authoritatively as possible, not emotionally, but you can’t be devoid of some feeling for what you’re telling people. You’re aware they will be very shocked and concerned.”

After a spell on BBC Breakfast News alongside Jill Dando, Nicholas became Diplomatic Correspondent with postings in Lebanon, Bosnia and Iraq. “During the Gulf War I was at central command in Qatar and afterwards reported from Baghdad. But I gradually became too old and dilapidated to be sent to places like that.”

He was initially reluctant to become Royal Correspondent: “I’d always been at the hard news end of the BBC. There was a perception that royal news is lightweight and frothy, though obviously when it's important, it’s very, very big.”

Never more so than 31 August 1997. “I was diplomatic correspondent at the time, and was with Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in the Philippines when we learned this accident had taken place in Paris. We were due to fly to Singapore, and I was listening on my radio to the BBC World Service reporting that Diana had survived the accident with concussion and a broken arm.

“But Robin Cook was in constant touch with the British Ambassador in Paris, and one of his officials passed me and simply said ‘she’s dead’. I was the first journalist to know – and I could see protection officers looking absolutely shell-shocked and Foreign Office staff in tears. I rang the newsroom in London and found it very difficult to tell them because I could just imagine the tidal wave that would flow from this moment.”

Despite Nicholas’s many years as Royal Correspondent, covering events such as the weddings of William to Kate, Harry to Meghan, and the death of the Queen, it was many years before King Charles spoke to him again after the Klosters incident. The rift was finally healed by the then Prince of Wales’s press secretary, who brought them together during a Royal visit to Saudi Arabia: “We chatted away as though nothing had ever happened.”

That rapprochement became very public when King Charles gave a speech and laid a wreath at the British Normandy Memorial on the 80th anniversary of D-Day in June 2024. It was the culmination of a project which has dominated Nicholas’s life for the past ten years.

“We were preparing material for the Cenotaph broadcast in 2014 and a veteran pointed out that Britain was the only country amongst the Second World War allies without its own national memorial in Normandy to the memory of those lost in the landings. I was taken aback – how on earth could that be?”

Soon afterwards, Nicholas established the Normandy Memorial Trust and, with support from the LIBOR Fund – fines from banks which had manipulated lending rates – began a feasibility study into establishing a permanent memorial.

“We drove along the coast road past Gold Beach, then up a farm track to this ridge and stood looking down towards the sea. Arromanches was to our left, with the remains of the Mulberry Harbour, and these fields of wheat blowing in the wind. We knew this was where it had to be.”

He secured the help of architect Liam O'Connor who had designed the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park, and they set out to find a suitable site.

With the support of a public appeal, and further funding from LIBOR, the beautiful memorial designed by O’Connor opened in 2021. The Winston Churchill Centre, which combines education and visitor facilities, was also officially opened by the King in June.

Nicholas remains very hands-on with the project: “I’m really the kitchen skivvy – making sandwiches every morning and washing up. It takes quite an effort to run these things and it’s been very busy this summer, with the anniversary.”

And the project has finally healed wounds opened on the slopes of Klosters. “The King is now our Royal patron. He very kindly sent a message for my retirement for the BBC which said ‘we’ve had a few ups and downs’. It was very a kind gesture.”