[Swprograms] Guardian on Cooke service and BBCWS

[Daniel Say <say@xxxxxx>]

----- Forwarded message from Daniel Say <say@xxxxxx> -----
Subject: Guardian | Home of poets and princes hosts tribute to beguiling voice from America
X-URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5040795-103690,00.html

Home of poets and princes hosts tribute to beguiling voice from America
   
   John Ezard Saturday October 16, 2004 The Guardian (London UK)

   Westminster Abbey - sporting the Stars and Stripes for what is said to
   be the first time since the American revolution more than 200 years
   ago - yesterday drew a fuller turnout than it expects for anything
   except the funerals of the most popular prime ministers, poets
   laureate and princes.
   
   Some 2,200 people crowded its doors and oversubscribed its spaces at a
   memorial service for a man who was proudly content to work as a
   dispassionate if warm observer of the mighty. The congregation was
   honouring Alistair Cooke, Guardian correspondent for 25 years and,
   with wider renown, composer of Letters from America for 58 years on
   BBC radio.
   
   Up to 150 of those attending were BBC World Service listeners, part of
   Cooke's worldwide audience of 22 million, who had travelled from as
   far as Australia and Lebanon to pay their respects, the BBC director
   general, Mark Thompson, said in an address.
   
   Their devotion, even love, for someone they had encountered only in
   print or on air was rewarded by a ceremony crafted with more than a
   touch of Cooke's own delicacy and mischief to reflect his
   connoisseur's taste in texts, music and liturgy; and to capture a few
   of his foibles.
  ... 
   The event began with Cooke's recorded voice saying cheerfully: "I am
   sure you expect me to say I am sorry not to be with you. Well, I am
   not sorry. The man you have chosen to honour bears an appalling
   resemblance to the final act of King Lear."

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