Paddy Haycocks is a broadcaster and producer who has worked in the British media for over 25 years. Born in

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, on 9 April 1950 his first brush with fame came when he was appearing on the ''Streetwise'' section of the ill-fated Channel Four Daily. Haycocks regularly interviewed a lawyer who represented

Ronnie Kray Ronald Kray (24 October 193320 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were English gangsters or organised crime figures and identical twin brothers from Haggerston who were prominent from the late 1950s until their arres ...

. The sartorially traditional Kray disapproved of Haycock's open-necked presenting style and sent him a beautiful silk tie, which Haycocks naturally wore at the first opportunity. He then went on to co-present

South Today ''BBC South Today'' is the BBC's regional television news service for the south of England, covering Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, West Sussex, much of Dorset and parts of Surrey and Wiltshire. The service is produced and bro ...

. He is perhaps best remembered for a low-budget daytime show called ''As it happens'' where he was beamed live from a famous place waiting for something to unfold, a style many critics feel has been adopted by modern news channels. Haycocks himself was a pioneering presenter of Channel One, London's first digital news channel but from the late 1990s worked increasingly on the other side of the camera and was, until his resignation in February 2006, factual programming executive at

Talkback Thames Talkback Thames is a British television production company, a division of Fremantle (company), FremantleMedia (now Fremantle), part of the RTL Group, which in turn is owned by Bertelsmann. It was formed by the merger of Talkback (production com ...

. Haycocks is, in his spare time, a leading light in the Wokingham Choral Society.Society information
/ref> He has two children, Timothy and Elizabeth.

Notes

1950 births Mass media people from Portsmouth English television presenters Living people {{UK-tv-bio-stub