November 2016 - My Life at the BBC
Members of the Horndean & District U3A met for their regular monthly meeting on Friday 4th November 2016 at Merchistoun Hall where they heard from Rona Musker about "Her life with Auntie."
Rona joined the BBC after studying for a university degree at St Andrew's in Scotland. She remained working for them for 32 years. She started in the Programme Correspondence Department but didn't stay there long. Following this she joined a live radio programme where she stayed for one and a half years. She then moved to TV as PA to a Producer on Tomorrows World. The unit manager was Bob Schultsman cousin of Peter Ustinov. Ten days later she was in Hamburg with Raymond Baxter filming Science & Features. She joined Woman's Hour where she had the privilege of working with Marjorie Anderson, the most intelligent and charming presenter.
Rona continued to enthral the members with her many moves and experiences within her career. She worked on the second series of Code Breakers and also filmed in France. She sent an application to Washington DC and ended up working there with Charles Wheeler. The first apartment she found unbeknowingly was in the Negro ghetto area (where there was a murder soon after) but was warned off and ended up in a three bedroom house in Georgetown, Washington.
In the election year of 1972 Rona toured the States with camera crews and their news film was shown within 48 hours in UK. She covered the Apollo 13's liftoff in Florida, then Huston for the flight and finally London for the touchdown. She then touted around London and it was a mad crazy time with Watergate breaking. She then worked in radio in Capitol Hill on the World Service. She worked with Brian Redhead and John Timpson to name but a few.
Rona then talked about her time on the Tonight programme where she covered the Falkland's war. She encountered severe censorship from the MOD. She was rung by the MOD and asked to send a reporter to the Falklands. Brian Hanrahan was her choice - it was his first big job. We were reminded about his memorable words "We counted them out and we counted them all back."
She then went on to work on the first Breakfast show on TV. Then her big break came with covering the Round the World Yacht race which suited her well as she had been an avid sailor all her life! She decided to adopt a school in Preston to become involved with the programme. The children came down to Southampton for the launch and were involved throughout the race. They were interviewed on Breakfast TV and finally the Princess of Wales, who was extraordinary, awarded the prizes. Rona was invited by Whitbreads (sponsors of the race) to go to Auckland, New Zealand for the half way stop over.
She worked on the Money programme, Waterfront (an eight week series), suffered with a bad back which caused her to be off work for two and a half months. She then joined Journalist Training and eventually became Head of the Department where she stayed for 4 years. Since leaving the BBC in 2000 she has enjoyed sailing around the Baltic, Mediterranean, Scotland and more.
Rona was then asked many questions about the BBC and her final opinion was that we would all be considerably poorer without it!
Diane Stoner
Speaker Coordinator