Bob Wellings, who has died aged 87 after a fall, was an “everyman” television presenter. He will be best remembered on Nationwide, the BBC’s early-evening news magazine programme, throughout the 1970s, his relaxed style and affable manner putting interviewees at their ease.
It was populist TV with a mix of hard news and quirky, lighter items, covering subjects from industrial action to a skateboarding duck. The format was intended to unite viewers across Britain by following each region’s news bulletin with a national programme bringing together items from BBC studios around the UK. The frequent technical hitches, in an era before satellite, seemed only to increase viewers’ affections for the show.
