INTRODUCTION

JOHN EDWARD BRIAN Newman was born in Kingsbury in the London suburb of Brent on 13 December 1935. He attended a primary school, St. Andrews Junior School run by the Church of England from 1941 to 1945, and Dudden Hill Secondary County School in West London (North Willesden) from 1946 to 1952 where he became school captain. During his national service in the Royal Marines in Malta, Italy and Turkey from 1953 to 1956 he served in the elite Special Boat Squadron (SBS). From 1956 to 1958 he was a trainee in the printing house of E.S. & A. Robinson in London. From 1958 to 1962 (i.e. in his mid-twenties) he was an External Lecturer in English and a Japanese language student at Tenri University, the centre of jūdō, in Nara prefecture, Japan.

During this time he obtained a Diploma in Japanese Studies from Tenri University (1961) and in 1964 a London University GCE A-level in Japanese after a two-year period studying Japanese at SOAS (1962–64). On his curriculum vitae submitted later to Nihon University medical school he wrote: ‘In 1964 I received an attractive offer from the BBC to join their newly-expanding Japanese Service. This offered a good prospect of ultimately succeeding Mr Trevor Leggett as Head of the Service. I interrupted my studies and accepted it.’

From 1967 to 1969 Newman was seconded by the BBC to NHK’s Radio Japan in Tokyo as an English announcer and news editor. His duties, as stipulated by NHK, included translation, rewriting and announcement of English news and language programmes, and training of NHK staff. He contributed to programmes such as ‘Hello from Tokyo’ into which he introduced for foreign listeners information about the way of life of Japanese people. On trips with his Japanese producer he covered such Japanese traditional events as cormorant fishing on the river Nagara in Gifu prefecture, Central Japan. On other broadcasts he described the famous whirlpools created by rapid tidal currents in the Naruto Strait by Shikoku Island as well as other scenic spots and places of historic interest in Japan. He established a good rapport with his Japanese colleagues who appreciated his gentle and polite demeanour.

In 1969 he was the BBC representative for British Week in Tokyo, and in 1970 BBC representative to Expo ‘70 in Osaka.