Richard Whiteley

John Richard Whiteley, a staunchly proud Yorkshireman, was a much-loved television presenter and journalist, born in Bradford, West Yorkshire in 1943.

When he used to present Calendar (1968), Yorkshire Television's local news programme, he was once required to interview a man who had brought his pet ferrets to the studio as part of the interview. When the interviewee passed him a ferret, saying "Go on, it's harmless, it won't bite you", the ferret did just that - it bit him hard and wouldn't let go! With the ferret hanging from his hand, Richard struggled manfully on with the interview despite being in excruciating pain. Being told "She's only playing with you, if she really meant business she'd bite right down to the bone" was scant comfort!

He was taught English at Giggleswick School by Russell Harty who later became famous as a chat-show host in the 1980s.

He was best known for being the presenter of the long running UK Channel 4 television show Countdown (1982). However, prior to this he was primarily a journalist, working as a reporter for Yorkshire Television, one of whose claims to fame being that he had interviewed every British Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan.

Countdown was originally scheduled to run for only five weeks when it began in 1982 as an inception show for the then brand new UK television channel Channel 4, but the show went on to run for 23 years under his presentation, averaging four million viewers per week. Whiteley will also be remembered for his taste in clothing, every single episode wearing a different garishly coloured tie along with an equally loud, sometimes striped, jacket. Never one to appear superior to his guests he was always self-effacing and "bumbling" - a word often used to describe him by his closest friends.

He was also the first journalist to interview the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher after the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference week in 1984.

Son, James, born 1987, with fashion journalist and TV presenter Lesley Ebbetts.

He reported on the imminent collapse of the Holbeck Hall hotel in Scarborough due to a landslip on 7 June 1993. As he was doing his piece to camera, the hotel collapsed into the sea behind him, right on cue.

In 2004 he was invested as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, an award of which he was said to have been very proud.

Hospitalized with a severe case of pneumonia in May 2005.