Fiona Bruce pays tribute to George Alagiah: "His death is devastating"
Fiona Bruce pays tribute to her late colleague George Alagiah who died last month.
George and I met for the first time in 1999 when we were both told, alongside Huw Edwards, that we were to be hosts of BBC News. He was going to do the One o’Clock News and I was going to do the Six.
I certainly hadn’t envisaged the move. I was a reporter and I’d long admired George’s work as foreign correspondent. And he was a very glamorous figure, a really handsome guy and a very courageous reporter. Not in any sense foolhardy, but brave and true.
He had a unique talent. As a foreign correspondent, then presenter, he touched the lives of so many people. But he was also a humble man. He would have been absolutely astonished that his death has sparked such an outpouring of affection from such a wide spectrum of society.
Perhaps the reason he touched so many people on screen is because he was his authentic self. He had warmth, decency and humanity and that always came through with him, which isn’t easy because, as a presenter, you have to sublimate your emotions to a fairly large extent. He brought the same talent from his reporting into his words as a presenter – a very clear sense of what the story was, why it mattered, and why we were telling it to you.
He was an old-fashioned journalist in the very best sense of the word: the story was never about him, and he didn’t want it to be about him. But, privately, he was also a man who would happily talk, with real candour, to his friends about his feelings and what he was going through when he was diagnosed with cancer.
When you’re in people’s sitting rooms, as he was for so many years as the face of News at Six, he couldn’t really hide what was happening to him. And so George took the brave decision to talk about his illness. I know that doing so publicly wouldn’t have come naturally to him.
He used to say to me, “I don’t want to talk about myself and what I’m going through, but I want to put the message out there – how to spot the signs of bowel cancer and not ignore them.” He did it because he was keen to help others.
George was a thoroughly authentic, lovely man. He was devoid of ego, even though his job put him front and centre. He was also someone I could absolutely trust.
What the viewers didn’t see is that, behind the scenes, he had a fantastic sense of humour, and liked to have a laugh and a giggle. George once donned a brunette mullet wig and pinstripe jacket with big shoulder pads to wear to my 1980s-themed fancy dress party. He was so convincing I didn’t recognise him and thought he hadn’t turned up. It wasn’t until a week or two later that I realised he’d been there.
At work, he combined an utter seriousness and sense of purpose about the job, with a lightness of touch and, on screen, he had real authority. That, I think, came from his sense of right and wrong, of what made a good story, and a clear idea of how to tell it. He was never one to exaggerate to make the story sound more exciting. That wasn’t his way. He knew how to tell a good story, but he was passionate about truth.
When his cancer was first diagnosed in 2014, I went to see him at his home. Perhaps I’m making George sound like a latter-day saint but, with me anyway, he didn’t show a shred of self-pity, despite the severity of his prognosis. And there was also no stiff upper lip. He was totally candid about it.
George had treatment for several years, all the way up to his death at the age of 67. He was unwell a lot of the time, yet he carried on. He would come into the newsroom whenever he could, which I know he found rejuvenating and invigorating. And we all loved it when he came in; we were thrilled that he could, and excited to see him. What George really liked was that when he was in the newsroom, he wasn’t a patient. He was back living his normal life.
Physically, he wanted to keep going. He wanted to try anything to be there as long as he could with his two boys, with his grandchildren. And most of all with his wife of nearly 40 years, Fran.
The last time I spoke to him, a few months ago, he was undergoing treatment and was waiting to see how much longer it would give him – and whether it would work or not. He was always full of praise for doctors, and everything they were doing, and counting his lucky stars that he had such a great team, who would try to keep him alive for as long as possible. He always spoke highly of them. But he was realistic.
I thought I would see George in the newsroom again. He had defeated the odds already and so, in my mind, there was a chance he could do it again. His death is devastating.
I really value the conversations I had with him about what he was going through, all the things that cancer was taking from him but, also, in a strange way, what it had given him, which was a sense of how much he had to live for. And how much was wonderful about his life.
The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
