Sir Ludovic Kennedy

Published on Monday 19 October 2009 20:35

Journalist, broadcaster and author

Born: 2 November, 1919, in Edinburgh.

Died: 18 October, 2009 in Wiltshire, aged 89.

WITH his good looks, mop of distinguished hair and charming manners, Ludovic Kennedy made an ideal inquisitor of politicians and industrialists. He was a champion of many liberal causes, led inquiries into past legal cases with a determined zeal and was a life-long campaigner against the death penalty.

Kennedy – everyone called him "Ludo" – was one of the most gifted and articulate of that group of television journalists – Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day and James Mossman – who laid the foundations of serious political journalism. The one-time Liberal Democrat unsuccessfully stood for parliament on three occasions but left the party in 2001 after a row with Charles Kennedy over euthanasia.

Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy was born in Edinburgh the son of a Royal Navy officer. He spent much of his early childhood in his grandmother's flat in Belgrave Crescent and much enjoyed trips on the tram with his grandfather to Leith. "I loved the Edinburgh trams," Kennedy has written. "The yellow slatted wooden seats, the whine and rattle as it gathered speed, the driver's low-pitched bell to shoo people out of the way."

He attended Eton – where he played jazz with Humphrey Lyttelton – but the outbreak of war in 1939 interrupted his studies. He had long been a lover of the sea and was followed his father into the navy. Kennedy was commissioned to HMS Tartar, which was one of the ships that hunted down the Bismarck. He then sailed with Tartar on the North Atlantic convoy run to Russia. The seas were among the most treacherous and the conditions terrible: "Worse than the dark was the cold, of an intensity I did not know existed."

After a period as private secretary to the governor of Newfoundland, Kennedy was demobilised and, in 1946, read English at Christ Church, Oxford where he became literary editor of the magazine Isis.

He spent his summer holidays in Scotland and struck up a friendship with the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. They were all keen on Scottish country dancing – especially Princess Margaret – and Kennedy was invited by Captain Peter Townsend to spend the weekend at Balmoral. But he asked to be excused as he had to get back to Oxford – in fact Kennedy admitted he was, "assailed by feelings of inadequacy".

When he graduated, Kennedy started work on a book on Nelson's admirals, but spent much time courting the famous dancer Moira Shearer. Kennedy plucked up courage to ask the famous ballerina to dance. "I'd love to" she replied, "but I am afraid I don't dance very well." They married in 1950 and spent the next 56 years together until her death in 2006.

While she danced at Covent Garden and made the film The Red Shoes, Kennedy worked for Newsweek and the Sunday Times. In 1953, he presented a programme on Radio3 about young writers, including Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin.

When Independent Television started in 1955, Kennedy presented a magazine programme called Sunday Afternoon. It demonstrated Kennedy's ease in front of the camera and his ability to put the sharpest questions in a polite but forceful manner.

The following year he substituted for an ill Robin Day and began a most distinguished career as an ITN newscaster. One critic commented on Kennedy's laid-back style of reading the news, "as though it were a letter to faraway relative whom he wished to interest".

For the next 20 years he was seldom off the screen and apart from the news he also presented This Week, Panorama and later Midweek and Tonight.

Kennedy and Day were among the first TV journalists to visit Moscow. They got into trouble when trying to film vegetable queues and were questioned by party authorities. Their boss looked down on them and said: "The path you have chosen is the wrong one." The two burst out laughing. There was another choice moment when US president John Kennedy was in London for talks with Harold Macmillan. JFK and Jackie were walking to their car and in the studio Dimbleby told the viewers, "over to Ludovic Kennedy who is about to have a few words with his namesake". Ludo later remarked: "I did get a word but no more. But it was the only interview JFK gave in London."

In 1978 the Kennedys bought a house overlooking the Water of Leith in Edinburgh and involved themselves in Scottish affairs. He was twice part of an unsuccessful consortium to bid for Scottish Television, was chairman of the Royal Lyceum Theatre (where Moira occasionally acted), they gave recitals at two Edinburgh Festivals and throughout Scotland and he was president of the Sir Walter Scott Club.

However Kennedy, as a result of his espousing controversial legal issues, fell foul of some high-ranking Edinburgh figures. He was blackballed for membership of Muirfield where he had played as a guest since his youth. He admitted "I found the lunches the best in any clubhouse in Britain", but he withdrew from the election as he did for Edinburgh's New Club.

Kennedy became known for writing about miscarriages of justice. One of the most famous was concerning the execution in 1951 of Timothy Evans for murders which, it transpired, he had not committed. It was later made into a film called 10 Rillington Place. Kennedy inquired into the trial of Stephen Ward in the Profumo case and, in America, the case of the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby. He campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six and other IRA suspects whose convictions were later proved inaccurate.

In one of his last interviews, he said: "If there are obituaries of me, all I want them to say is: 'He tried to do good, but may have failed.'" His autobiography, On My Way to the Club, was a bestseller. He was knighted in 1994 and awarded honorary degrees by Edinburgh and Strathclyde universities. He is survived by three daughters and a son.