Austen Kark

Austen Kark CBE (born October 20, 1926 in London , † May 10, 2002 in Potters Bar ) was a British journalist and the manager of the BBC World Service . He was, along with Gerard Mansell and John Tusa, one of three previous holders of this post who opposed John Birt's plans to integrate this service into the BBC . After Birt became general manager of the BBC in 1992, he planned to end the independent status of the service at Bush House in central London and let the rest of the company swallow it.

Kark led a colorful life before joining the BBC. He was the son of a London Army major who became a publisher. He attended Upper Canada College in Toronto , Nautical College in Pangbourne , Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth and Magdalen College in Oxford. In 1944 he became a midshipman in the Royal Navy and served two years in the East Indian Fleet, on board HMS Nelson and HMS London .

In 1948, Kark directed the first production of Jean-Paul Sartre's play The Flies in Oxford . He later joined his family's magazine business, Norman Kark Publications. One of the company's magazines was the glossy literary magazine Courier . Kark married Margaret Schmahmann in 1949 and had two daughters with her. The couple divorced in 1954. In the same year, Kark married Nina Bawden and became the stepfather of their two sons. They had a daughter together. In 1954 he became a BBC reporter and in 1964 head of the South European Service at the Bush House. His experience in southern Europe fueled his interest in the region, particularly Greece ; later he wrote travel guides about this country.

Kark moved to Eastern Europe in 1972 and worked for Russian Service. The following year he became editor of the World Service. In 1979 he advised the last governor of Rhodesia , Lord Soames , on broadcasting the election in that country.

Kark became engineer services controller in 1974. In 1980 he chaired the Harare government report on radio and television in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe . In 1981 he began a two-year tenure as assistant director of External Broadcasting. He was promoted to managing director in 1984, exactly 30 years after starting at the BBC.

Kark was the middleman in another major BBC controversy - the launch of the BBC World television service to complete its radio counterpart. The idea was first put up for discussion by Kark's predecessor, Douglas Muggeridge - the nephew of broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge . Kark retired in 1986.

Kark was a man of many interests, especially when it came to southern Europe and the Commonwealth . He became a Commissioner for the Commonwealth Journalists' Association in 1993. In retirement, he wrote Attic In Greece in 1994 and The Forwarding Agent , a Middle Eastern spy thriller set in 1999 and extolled by an old friend, crime writer PD James . Most of his books were written in his home in Nauplion , a small town in the Peloponnese , where he and his wife, the novelist Nina Bawden, spent most of the time. In London, the couple lived in Islington , in a house with the rear facing the Grand Union Canal . His hobbies included real tennis, the original form of tennis , traveling and mosaic studies. He was a member of the Oriental Club and MCC and was named CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1987.

Austen Kark died at the age of 75 in a railroad accident at Potter's bar in which his wife, author Nina Bawden, was seriously injured.

Individual evidence

• Dennis Barker: BBC mandarin who successfully defended the world service , The Guardian. May 13, 2002.