This Is Your Life article

The Guardian 24 February 1970

Gale Pedrick

Mr Gale Pedrick Harvey (Gale Pedrick, journalist and broadcaster), of Chislet, Kent collapsed and died in London yesterday. He was 64.

Mr Harvey was well-known to BBC radio listeners, especially for his programme, "Pick of the Week", which he started 21 years ago. He also introduced Radio Two, "Thanks for the Memory" programmes.

He was also a voluminous writer and left his job as a BBC script editor in the 1950s to devote time to freelance writing. His output included plays, documentaries, talks, articles and books, including book versions of "Steptoe and Son" and the first 35 editions of BBC TV's This Is Your Life.

He was first associated with the BBC as a freelance writer in 1925, was a pioneer of Forces Radio and, during his war-time service, became senior broadcasting officer of the British Army.

Mr Robert Hudson, head of BBC Outside Broadcasts (Radio) said last night: "It's a great shock, but we shall have to continue his "Pick of the Week" broadcasts, as I am sure he would have wished."

The BBC said "Pick of the Week" would go out as usual this week and some of the items Mr Pedrick had chosen would almost certainly be used but it was not known who would take his place.

The Times 24 February 1970

MR GALE PEDRICK

Journalist and broadcaster

Mr Gale Pedrick Harvey, who, as Gale Pedrick, was a well-known Fleet Street journalist and broadcaster collapsed and died at Tottenham Court Road underground station London yesterday. He was 64.

He was born in London on June 15, 1906, and educated at the Sir Roger Manwood School, Sandwich. In 1920 he began work as a journalist on the Western Mail, in Plymouth, and worked on the Daily Despatch in Manchester before he reached London as a feature writer, concentrating on radio and theatre criticism for the Star.

Pedrick had begun his career in broadcasting in 1926, talking from the Plymouth studio. In the war, as an officer in the Devonshire Regiment, his experience of radio involved him in broadcasting to the Forces. By 1944 he was in charge of British Forces Broadcasts, with a studio in Algiers serving the Fifth and Eighth Armies.

From 1946 to 1949 he was at the BBC as script editor for variety programmes, and as a freelance after 1949. He was an indefatigable broadcaster responsible for an enormous number of programmes, the most popular of which was "Pick of the Week". In this, surrounded by literally miles of tape, he selected, pieced together and repeated the highlights of the 400 or 500 hours of broadcasting in sound and television which make up the BBC's weekly output.

He said that to produce "Pick of the Week" he had to spend 40 hours watching television or listening to radio. Pedrick started the programme 21 years ago. It was his own personal selection of the best of the week's broadcasting.

Pedrick was also a voluminous writer. He set himself the target of 10,000 words a week and his output ranged through plays, documentaries, talks, articles and books, including book versions of "Steptoe and Son" and the first 35 editions of BBC television's This Is Your Life.