LEGENDARY BBC star Walter Love has died aged 88 after a career spanning over 70 years.
The iconic radio personality, who hosted shows including the popular Love in the Afternoon and Radio Ulster’s Day By Day, died yesterday morning, his family announced.
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Walter Love pictured at BBC BelfastCredit: Pacemaker
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He hosted Radio Ulster’s Day By Day and Love in the Afternoon and presented the Sunday flagship show Love Forty
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Walter Love with Belfast artist Van Morrison
With a broadcasting career spanning 77 years, The Jazz Club with Walter Love aired its final show in 2023.
His devastated family confirmed that he died on Friday morning in a nursing home after a short illness, reports the BBC.
Walter’s relatives described him as a “dearly loved member of the Love family”.
Workshop began his long career in the 1950s as a freelance contributor to BBC radio.
He then took a job as a studio manager in London, before becoming a TV news presenter in Belfast.
Walter joined Radio Ulster in 1978, where he also hosted the Sunday show Love Forty, and in 1997 he received an MBE for services to journalism.
In 2014, the presenter was inducted into the Irish Radio Phonographic Performances Hall of Fame.
BBC Northern Ireland director Adam Smyth described Mr Love as having “a touch of mischief” while being “brilliant, kind and cheerful”.
He also credited the longtime host’s “incredible” on-air performance, as well as his “encyclopedic” musical knowledge.
Former BBC Radio Ulster head of programming Don Anderson, who moved Walter to the morning slot where Gloria Hunniford came out, said the host “was a gentle part of a gentleman”.
“He’s always been an excellent television presenter. He actually joined the BBC in a behind-the-scenes role and then switched to reading the news,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.
“He was a gentleman, and he was the gentle part of a gentleman. He was always polite, he had a beautiful voice. In many ways he was ‘Mr. Respectable’ in broadcasting terms.
“People liked him immediately and he had a great rapport with the audience.”
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