My partner, Paul Sapsford, who has died suddenly aged 58 of a heart attack, was a respected manager in television continuity. He worked successively at the BBC, Channel 4 and latterly UKTV, involved with scheduling and presentation, and in communicating the channels’ identity through the voice links and branding used between programmes.
He got his break in television in 1989 when he joined the expanding BBC subtitling unit. There he nurtured a commitment to access and inclusion that he retained throughout his career. Paul was based in White City in west London but he also worked for a time in BBC Glasgow, where his professionalism and friendly work style won him many new friends.
He returned to London in 1992 and five years later became a network director at the BBC, working long shifts to ensure the schedules ran to time.
After a short career break, during which Paul qualified as a personal trainer, he returned to television in 2007, joining Channel 4 as presentation manager; from 2011 to 2020 he was group continuity manager. Paul championed diversity, leading initiatives to place less represented groups at the heart of transmission, including the Born Risky campaign, using announcers with audibly disabled voices, such as those identifying with cerebral palsy, Tourette’s, autism and stammering, and a partnership with the charity Mind to use voices of celebrities including Stephen Fry and Ruby Wax to highlight mental health issues.
In 2020 Paul started a new role as continuity producer for UKTV, bringing his skills and knowledge to a raft of television channels.
Paul was born in Preston, Lancashire, to Joan (nee Trafford), an administrative worker, and Brian Sapsford, a butcher. He enjoyed a happy childhood with his younger sister, Denise, and was an avid reader and television watcher. On leaving Tulketh High school he went to Trinity and All Saints College in Leeds (now Leeds Trinity University) to read media studies, meeting a group of lifelong friends. As part of his course, Paul took up a placement with London Weekend Television in their studios on the South Bank.
On graduating, Paul took work as a box office assistant in the Phoenix theatre on Charing Cross Road in London, which is where he and I first met, in 1987. We were together from then on, entering into a civil partnership in 2008. Paul then tried his hand at theatre management in the Playhouse theatre on the Embankment but soon afterwards got his job at the BBC.
When he was not working Paul followed the world tennis tour religiously and was an avid supporter of Rafael Nadal. He also loved theatre, musicals, cooking, the Royal Ballet, gardening, keeping fit, art exhibitions, the Edinburgh festival, travelling, cats and good food and wine.
In 2018, we moved from London to Deal in Kent where Paul took a delight in the local countryside and enjoyed working on our allotment. He volunteered at church and brought his professional skills to the local newspaper for the blind.
Paul is survived by his parents, Brian and Joan, his sister, Denise, his nephew, Daniel, and niece, Rebecca, and by me.
