Radio legend Cooke dies aged 95. BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke - best known for his Letter from America - dies at the age of 95. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]
Alistair Cooke signs off. After broadcasting his last Letter from America just a few weeks ago, and announcing his retirement, he died yesterday, just one day after another great and much-loved character, Peter Ustinov. The Guardian, with which Cooke was long associated, has their tribute here.
Many others more qualified than I have sung his praises, but on a personal note, Alistair Cooke has been a part of my life, it seems for ever. His weekly letters were rebroadcast on the SABC either on Sunday evening or at lunchtime, when it seems I never missed them. I have vivid memories of the places where I heard the broadcasts, from boyhood in the Transvaal and Rhodesia (as they were then), to student days in Pietermaritzburg, and then in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Athens, Hermanus, and the list goes on... More recently, I have listened to the weekly broadcast right here at my PC in Zakynthos, thanks to the Internet, Real Player and the BBC. I have his marvellous book on America, based on his famous TV series of the 1970's (note: I must buy the DVD), and a few years back, bought his biography a couple of years ago, and all round, I was a great fan of his. As one commentator noted when he retired, he truly was unique, and we will never hear his like again - that style of radio truly belongs to the past.
LATER: from the Jo'burg Sunday Times and The Telegraph, here are nice obituaries of Alistair Cooke and Sir Peter Ustinov.
1:29:08 PM 
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