Brian Hanrahan - BBC journalist 22 March 2024 - 20 December 2024
By John Kaponi Essex Alum 1997
Brian Hanrahan who I met at the Athenaeum Club with other fellow Alums of Essex University said to me "John come over here" we walked into one of the grand rooms of the Athenaeum to see the "great and good" play bridge", Brian said "this is another world to most us".
And it was from here we struck a short but meaningful friendship, and Brian it turned out lived five minutes from my home in Southgate north London. I last spoke with Brian in Parliament on 29 November were we had arranged to meet for a "Greek lunch" in Southgate, but this was never to happen. With vast knowledge of world politics and international relations Brian would have played a pivotal role in the newly formed Essex Government Graduates Association (EGGA), our work will now be dedicated to our fellow Alum, may his soul rest in peace.
Brian Hanrahan Wikepida facts:
Born in Middlesex, Hanrahan was educated at the St Ignatius' College (grammar school) in Stamford Hill, Tottenham. He studied politics at the University of Essex, where he was a member of an amateur dramatic society.
Hanrahan joined the BBC in 1970 as a photographic stills clerk, then became a scriptwriter, then duty editor in the TV newsroom. He became the BBC's Northern Ireland correspondent.
He joined the press corps attached to the Falklands War, and when on HMS Hermes (R12), came to worldwide fame, responsible for one of the most memorable journalistic moments of the campaign, with the line:[2] “ I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back ”
This got him around the reporting restrictions placed by military intelligence, so that he could say that all the British Harrier jump jets had returned safely without saying how many there were.[3]
In the 1980s, he was based in Hong Kong, then in Moscow in the 1980s and 1990s, commentating on the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, as well as Yasser Arafat's funeral in 2004.
Hanrahan was a critic of communism, and claimed that "Europe has a lot to thank Mikhail Gorbachev for".[4]
