Peggy Bacon (radio producer)
{{Short description|English radio and television producer and radio presenter}}
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Margaret Bacon (19 November 1918{{Spaced ndash}}1 March 1976), who worked under the name Peggy Bacon, was a BBC radio and television producer and radio presenter.{{cite Q|Q110995197}}{{cite Q|Q110995254|author1=unset}}
Early life and education
Bacon was born on 19{{Nbsp}}November 1918 in Kings Heath, Birmingham, England, to Arthur Charles Bacon and Doris Elizabeth, {{Nee|Day}}.{{Cite news|author= |date=20 November 1918 |title=Births |work=Birmingham Mail |language=en |number=16498 |page=6 |oclc=863516663 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000644/19181120/122/0006 |access-date=21 November 2023 |url-access=subscription}} She was educated at the city's King Edward VI High School for Girls from 1931 to 1936.{{cite book |last1=Hutton |first1=Thomas Winter |title=King Edward's School, Birmingham, 1552-1952 |date=1952 |publisher=Blackwell |page=185}}
Career
She joined the BBC in Birmingham as a secretary in 1938 before working as a Red Cross nurse, treating wounded servicemen at an emergency hospital in Birmingham for several months in 1940, during World War II.
She produced and presented - as "Aunty Peggy" - the BBC Home Service radio programme Children's Hour for almost 20 years, with the Radio Times first listing her appearance on 17 September 1947.{{Cite news |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/c1d1c33527794a7181eef797859bf34a?page=14 |title=Children's Hour |date=14 September 1947 |work= Radio Times |access-date=23 February 2022 |issue=1248 |pages=14 }} She also edited a B.B.C. Children's Hour Annual book, for the BBC.{{cite journal |title=Personalia |journal=The Publishers' Circular and Booksellers' Record |date=1951 |volume=165 |page=1324}}{{cite web |title=B.B.C. Children's Hour Annual (image of cover) |url=https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/185215562563_/BBC-Childrens-Hour-Annual-1951-Peggy-Bacon.jpg |access-date=23 February 2022 |date=23 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220223171408/https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/185215562563_/BBC-Childrens-Hour-Annual-1951-Peggy-Bacon.jpg |archive-date=23 February 2022 }}
After meeting two railway-enthusiast film makers, she commissioned them to work on Railway Roundabout, a television series, episodes of which she also produced, and which ran from 1958 to 1962.{{cite web |last1=Hewitt |first1=Sam |title=From the Archive: P B Whitehouse |website=The Railway Magazine |url=https://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/13361/from-the-archive-p-b-whitehouse/ |access-date=23 February 2022 |date=19 December 2019}}{{Cite news |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/2a7285875f2d4d7aa5921f3913d8865e |title=Railway Roundabout|date=11 March 1960 |work=Radio Times|access-date=23 February 2022 |issue=1896|pages=16 }}
She commissioned Brian Vaughton to make the documentary The Cats Whiskers: celebrating forty years of broadcasting from the heart of England, broadcast on the Home Service (Midland) on 12 November 1962.{{cite web |last1=Vaughton |first1=Brian |title=Birmingham Ballads |url=https://cpatrust.org.uk/birmingham-ballads |website=Charles Parker Archive Trust |access-date=23 February 2022}}{{Cite news |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/c8c2e1daa847da367d906cf90cb86f3f |title=The Cats Whiskers |date=10 November 1962 |work=Radio Times|access-date=23 February 2022 |issue=2035 |pages= }} In 1965, after she made a successful series of programmes for O-level students, she was transferred to the BBC's education department, in London. While there, she edited F. D. Flower's Reading to Learn: An Approach to Critical Reading (BBC, 1969).{{cite book |title=Reading to learn an approach to critical reading; |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/579516566 |publisher=OCLC |oclc=579516566 |access-date=23 February 2022 }}
Personal life and death
References
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Category:BBC television producers
Category:Mass media people from Birmingham, West Midlands
Category:People educated at King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham
Category:English women radio presenters