Vale: Alan Whicker

Veteran UK presenter and reporter Alan Whicker, best known for his travel series Whicker’s World, has died at the age of 87.

He died at his home in Jersey after suffering from bronchial pneumonia, his spokeswoman said.

Whicker’s career stretched nearly 60 years, after starting in the 1950s as an international reporter on the BBC’s Tonight programme.

Whicker’s World, which he presented for a little over three decades, famously captured a glimpse of the exotic jetset lifestyles of the rich and famous.

In 2009, he returned to some of the locations and people who featured over the years for a BBC series, Alan Whicker’s Journey Of A Lifetime.

Egypt-born Whicker had also been a war correspondent and, during his own service in the Second Word War, he was among the first group of Allied forces to enter Milan and he filmed footage of the body of Mussolini.

His fame led to the Monty Python “Whicker Island” sketch, in which all the inhabitants of a tropical island were Alan Whicker clones.

Michael Palin was one of the first to pay tribute, describing him as “a great character, a great traveller and an excellent reporter.”

Source: Telegraph