Anna Ford (born 2 October 1943) is an English retired journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She first worked as a researcher, news reporter and later newsreader for Granada Television, ITN, and the BBC. Ford helped launch the British breakfast television broadcaster TV-am. She retired from broadcast news presenting in April 2006 and was a non-executive director of Sainsbury's until the end of 2012. Ford now lives in her home town of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.[1]
In February 1978, Ford moved to ITN, and briefly faced legal threats from the BBC for breaking her contract.[8] Future colleague Reginald Bosanquet said at the time: "I have never been averse to working with ladies ... I do not know Anna but I have heard that she is a very competent and professional lady",[8] Ford and he formed a good professional relationship.[4] Ford began presenting ITV's News at One in March and later the 5:45 pm bulletin, but within two months had become the first female newscaster on News at Ten.[8]
In 1979, Ford appeared in a skit along with John Cleese and Terry Jones of the Monty Python troupe as part of "The Amnesty International Comedy Gala", a comedy programme performed at Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket, London. The film version is called "The Secret Policeman's Ball".
In 1981, she left ITN to join the presenting team of the soon-to-launch TV-am. ITN were bidding for the breakfast franchise themselves and had positioned Ford as the lead anchor in their bid, unaware that she was involved with another bidder. When her subterfuge was exposed, ITN immediately terminated her contract and publicly criticized her dishonesty and disloyalty.[9] Her tenure at TV-am was short lived in part due to fierce competition from the BBC's casually styled Breakfast Time. The loss of viewers resulted in a relaunch which was perceived as "dumbing-down" of the station, and only three months after the station's launch, Ford was dismissed from TV-am partly due to her on-air support for chairman Peter Jay (who had already resigned) and partly because she refused to stand down from Good Morning Britain when the ratings slumped.[9] Ford was involved in an incident at a party in which she threw her wine over Jonathan Aitken to express her outrage over his involvement in her sacking from the channel.[10]
Ford re-joined the BBC in summer 1986, Firstly to cover for Wogan in June, and other minor roles. From January 1987 was given her own programme "Network" in which member of the public were able discusses issues with BBC management.[11] Anna, become part of the presentation team for both BBC One's Six O'Clock News from February 1989 and the BBC Radio 4Today in 1993. From 1999, she fronted the relaunched One O'Clock News.
On 30 October 2005, Ford announced she would retire from broadcasting in April 2006 to pursue other interests while she "still has the interest and energy".[12] She also talked about ageism, stating:[13]
I might have been shovelled off into News 24 to the sort of graveyard shift, and I wouldn't have wanted to do that because it wouldn't have interested me. I think when you reflect on the people who they're (the BBC) bringing in and they're all much younger. I think they are being brought in because they are younger. I think that's specifically one of the reasons why they're being employed."
Ford presented her last One O'Clock News on 27 April 2006, signing off by introducing a compilation of clips of her career. On 2 May 2006, J Sainsbury plc, the UK supermarket group, announced Ford was joining the company as a non-executive director.[14] She is the Chair of Sainsbury's board's Corporate Responsibility Committee.[15]
Academia
On 17 December 2001, Ford was installed as Chancellor of the Victoria University of Manchester. When the Victoria University of Manchester merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) on 1 October 2004 to create the new University of Manchester, she became its Co-Chancellor along with Sir Terry Leahy (the former Chancellor of UMIST). She completed her term and Tom Bloxham succeeded her as sole Chancellor on 1 August 2008.
Ford is one of many guest hosts to have taken the chair for the satirical news quiz Have I Got News for You.[16]
Personal life
Ford had an early marriage to Alan Bittles (1970–div), although this was dissolved before her television career began. In the late 1970s, she was briefly engaged to Jon Snow, a colleague at ITN.[17][18] She married the magazine editor and cartoonist Mark Boxer in 1981;[17] with whom she had two daughters, before he died of a brain tumour in 1988 at their home in Brentford, Greater London.[19]
She was briefly engaged in 2000 to former astronaut David Scott, the seventh man to walk on the Moon.[20] Ford became the subject of news stories in August 2001, when she lost a high-profile court case. She claimed unsuccessfully that photographs of her in a bikini with Scott, taken by a press photographer in Majorca with a powerful zoom lens and published in the British media, constituted an invasion of her privacy.[6]
In a letter to The Guardian in February 2010, Ford accused Martin Amis (a friend of her late husband Mark Boxer) of having neglected his duties as godfather to one of her daughters and also having been disrespectful to Boxer at the time of his death.[21] Amis rejected her allegations in a reply, but accepted that he had been remiss in his duties as godfather.[22]
^Mark Hollingshurst and Richard Norton Taylor Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, London: Hogarth Press, 1988, p. 106; David Leigh and Paul Lashmar "The Blacklist in Room 105", The Observer, 18 August 1985, p. 9
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