Paul Vaughan

Paul William Vaughan (24 October 1925 – 14 November 2014) was a British journalist, radio presenter (of art and science programmes) throughout the 1970s and 1980s, semi-professional jazz and classical musician and a narrator of many BBC television science documentaries, among them Horizon.

Early life

He was born in Brixton but after ten years moved to New Malden in Surrey. His father worked at the Linoleum (& Floorcloth) Manufacturers' Association (LMA), which became the British Floorcovering Manufacturers' Association. He is the younger brother of dance archivist and historian David Vaughan.

He attended Raynes Park County School (a boys' grammar school, which became Raynes Park High School in 1969), which he attended with other well-known voices on Radio 4, who also followed him to Oxford. He studied French and English at Wadham College, Oxford. He did military service in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Early career

He began work for the pharmaceutical company Menley and James, now part of GlaxoSmithKline, in Camberwell.

From 1955-65 he was the Chief Press Officer of the British Medical Association at Tavistock Square.

Broadcasting career

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and even much of the 1990s, he was the main voice of the BBC's arts and science output. His science output was mostly on television.

From 1968 until 1995 he was the main narrator of the BBC's main science documentary series Horizon. Science and technology were rapidly developing in these decades, notably in biology and electronics, and consequently there was much to report for the Horizon series. Horizon in the 1970s and 1980s was a heavyweight science documentary series, and these years were its heyday.

On the BBC World Service he presented Science in Action, and Discovery, and on Radio 4 New Worlds (1969-1973).

He presented the Radio 4 magazine arts programme Kaleidoscope from its beginning in 1973 right throughout until its closure in April 1998. Kaleidoscope initially had science also in its remit, and later in October 1995 his input to the programme was limited to reviewing books and music, to introduce some structure to the programme's topics.

On Radio 3 he presented Record Review from 1981, taking over from John Lade, who had presented it from its beginning in 1957.

He also presented a programme similar to Kaleidoscope called World of Concorde for British Airways in-flight entertainment

Vaughan narrated the 1984 television drama Threads.

When the phone network Orange was launched in Britain, for many years his voice, using the tagline "The future's bright, the future's Orange", was used exclusively for the television adverts. He was also one of the most widely heard voices for Tesco's 'Every Little Helps' adverts and Colgate toothpaste adverts.

He provided narration for the British English edition of the Japanese Nintendo Wii video game Kirby's Epic Yarn.

Musical career

Paul Vaughan was a self-taught clarinetist in both jazz and classical music and played in the Worcester Park and Wimbledon Philharmonic orchestras.

Personal life

He married in north-east Surrey in 1951 to Barbara Prys-Jones, daughter of Welsh poet Arthur Prys-Jones; Vaughan and Prys-Jones had four children, sons Timothy and Matthew, and daughters Katherine and Lucy. After his divorce from Prys-Jones, Vaughan married BBC producer Philippa (Pippa) Burston in 1988, with whom he had two sons Benedict and Thomas.