‘Much-loved’ BBC radio legend dies suddenly aged 81 as wife shares touching tribute
A BBC radio legend has died suddenly aged 81 as his wife shared a touching tribute.
David Arscott was a presenter and producer on Radio Brighton, later called Radio Sussex, from the mid-seventies until 1991.
The father-of-seven passed away on a bench in the grounds of Lewes Priory on November 29 after playing a game of tennis.
He was known in the local community for creating a garden on the corner of Friars’ Walk in the town centre.
The grandfather-of-ten also wrote more than 40 books about Sussex, The Argus reported.
David started his career as newspaper journalist in London, Dorset and Caracas, Venezuela.
He joined Radio Brighton, which later became Radio Sussex, in the mid-seventies.
The English Literature graduate of Hertford College, Oxford, and his wife Jill settled in Lewes in 1988.
David left the BBC in 1991 and married Jill the same year while living in St John’s Hill in the Pells.
He was a proud Lewes FC for 25 years, according to SussexWorld.
His first book, Hidden Sussex, was published by BBC Radio Sussex.
While the last book he wrote was about the Sussex poet Hilaire Belloc.
His wife Jill paid tribute to her husband writing: “He liked people and rarely judged them.
“Although he loved his writing he always said that radio presenting was the best job he had ever had.
“Few things riled David, but a misplaced comma certainly did.
“David had long been the county’s laureate, telling its story in his own words and in his warm voice in dozens of books, programmes and talks all over Sussex.
“He loved the records kept by Sussex vicars of centuries ago, laughing out loud at ‘Buried Thomas Winfield, that old fornicator’ and the baptism of the daughter of ‘Elizabeth Rogers, a very noted strumpet of this parish’.”
Jill also recalled a funny moment in David’s radio career during an education phone-in.
She said: “The red light suddenly flashed, David gratefully opened the mic, asked the listener for her educational point and she said: ‘I’ve lost my parrot!’.
“Such were the perils of having no back-up to separate the calls to the station’s lost pet service from the current affairs phone-ins
“In those days editing meant cutting tape with a razor blade and all too often hunting for the lost bit when it dropped into the wastepaper basket.
“Whether it was missing parrots or doing the commentary from the funeral of Ian Gow, the Eastbourne MP murdered by the IRA, David loved the job.”
David is survived by his wife, seven children and ten grandchildren.