Jolyon Monson

I'm sure others, who knew him more closely, will want to write tributes to Jolyon Monson, who has died at his home in Darcey, Burgundy.

He came to the BBC Radio Newsroom from papers, and soon moved to current affairs. I first met him as a trainee on attachment to The World Tonight, where Jolyon was a senior producer with a pipe, a cravat and plenty of very sensible advice. He spent nearly a decade at Today, including a spell as acting editor in the interregnum between Julian Holland and Jenny Abramsky. As Jenny's deputy, he helped shape our current Radio 4 worldview, as this piece from John Humphrys in a Mail feature from 2007 explains. Take yourself back, now, to 1987...

"The phone is ringing at my home in Henley-on-Thames as I unlock the front door. That surprises me a little because it’s almost midnight. I’m tired and a bit grumpy after another long day at Television Centre and I toy with letting it ring. But curiosity gets the better of me. Five minutes later my life has been changed. The caller is an old friend, Jolyon Monson, deputy editor of the Today programme. He comes straight to the point. John Timpson, the programme’s presenter, is retiring in a couple of months and the editor, Jenny Abramsky, wants to know if I’m interested in taking his job.

"I hesitate for all of ten seconds. Yes, I say. Yes of course I want the job. I want it so much I don’t even ask how much they’ll pay me to do it."

I think Jolyon and John bonded in New York, when Humphrys was correspondent there in the early 70s, and Jolyon was the radio producer on secondment. Jolyon moved on from Today in 1988, producing coverage of the Bush-Dukakis election, and editing a regular programme (another Abramsky idea), Europhile. Yes, you heard right.

Jolyon took early retirement in the 90s, briefly helping launch the London News Radio incarnation of LBC, which ran under Reuters ownership from 94 to 96.