Obituary - Death of radio executive Gerry Mansell
Published: 29 December 2010
by DAN CARRIER
GERRY Mansell, who has died aged 89, became a leading figure in radio throughout the second half of the 20th century, and was known for his work for Burgh House, the Queen Anne house in New End.
Born in Paris in 1921, he was the son of a Lloyds banker called Herbert and his Parisian wife Anne-Marie, and completed the French Baccalaureate at the esteemed Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques in 1938 and 1939.
As a 19-year-old, he watched the German Army swarm through France and his father faced the tortuous decision whether to sit it out or flee: a hair-raising drive behind the
German lines took them to the northern French coast and on June 9 1940, Gerry, his father and brother Olivier slipped aboard a ship bound for Swansea, leaving their car on the dockside.
Gerry would return later as a liberating soldier.
Soon after his arrival in England, his lifelong relationship with Camden began: his aunt lived in a corner house in Bisham Gardens, Highgate, and the family took refuge there.
Gerry’s war record, which did much to shape his later career and approach to life, was heroic, though his modesty was such you would never have known it: Gerry served in some of the most vicious battles of the war.
Having had a French childhood, and no real links to any particular area of Britain, he decided to join up in the regiment whose name he most liked – and that was the Royal Norfolks.
Posted to the Middle East, he served at El Alamein and fought against Rommel: promotions followed and a diary discovered by his son James opens at “Zero Hundred Hours” in the invasion of Sicily, chronicling the Allied advance northwards.
Later, he worked at the general staff headquarters to prepare for D-Day.
As a major, he went with divisional headquarters from D-Day through to Arnhem.
He also carried with him the tragedy of losing a sibling. His younger brother had been dropped behind enemy lines as a paratrooper – his French made him a valuable asset – but was discovered by the SS and kicked to death in the street by Hitler Youth thugs.
The culprits would later be convicted of murder at the war crimes trials in the Hague.
Furthermore, he watched senior officers of the German army surrender just before Gerry and his comrades discovered the unspeakable atrocities committed at Belsen. He was haunted by the fact he could not save many of the people liberated from Belsen as they were so ill.
After being demobbed in 1946, he enrolled at the Chelsea School of Art and the beginning of the 1950s saw him join BBC radio.
Among the posts he held were deputy director general, controller of Radio 4 and director of programmes and managing director of the World Service.
He met his wife Diana in the mid-1950s and the couple have two sons, Francis and James.
Among the numerous awards he was given, Gerry was made a CBE in the 1970s.
Gerry, who later worked in colleges training journalists, had a deep belief in the importance of free and impartial reporting,
and making sure
people had access to information, an ethos honed at the BBC World Service during the Cold War.
After retirement, Gerry’s skills made him a valuable member at Burgh House, where he was the chairman between 1995 and 2004.
It is hardly surprising that Gerry’s hugely successful career lay upon a polymathic character: a keen watercolour artist, he read 20th-century literature, and was interested in military history focusing on campaigns he had seen first hand.
He also loved music, and entertaining. Friends recall his dinners for six – an optimum number around a table, he felt – and he would enjoy watching friendships grow, watered by good wine and forged by his amenable personality.
His son James recalled a family joke: when his father was standing at the docks in Nantes, waiting for a boat to take them to safety from the advancing Wehrmacht, he ensured they had eaten an excellent lunch. It became a family line, that a good lunch was the thing before any voyage.
On Friday night, as he was passing away, Gerry whispered to his son Francis that “we should go to a restaurant” – fitting last words from someone so appreciative of good food.
He is survived by Diana, Francis and James.
Gerry’s funeral will be at Golders Green Crematorium on Tuesday January 11 at 11am, with a reception afterwards at Burgh House.
His family have asked for no flowers, but donations to Amnesty International.