Barry Bucknell
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Robert "Barry" Barraby Bucknell (26 January 1912,
Bucknell was educated at the
Home improvement shows
After his first child was born, Bucknell was asked by a BBC radio producer to give a talk on becoming a parent. It was after this that he was asked to demonstrate home improvements on TV.
About the Home
Initially, he was one of a number of experts answering viewers' questions, but his manner, both magisterial and welcoming, was so much liked he was given his own spot on About the Home in 1956, demonstrating tasks such as putting up shelves and making a tool box.
Barry Bucknell's Do It Yourself
In the late 1950s he began presenting the long running BBC TV series Barry Bucknell's Do It Yourself which at its peak attracted seven million viewers. The programmes were presented live and, despite rehearsing his projects at home with his wife timing him, occasionally resulted in on-screen mishaps with Bucknell saying "This is how not to do it!"
Bucknell's House
The 1962 series Bucknell's House followed a 39-week BBC project renovating a house, bought for £2,250, in Ealing. According to the 2008 Channel 4 programme How TV Changed Britain the house was now said to be worth £800,000.
Other television appearances
Bucknell appeared in a public information film Energy Sense is Common Sense in 1976.
Criticism
Bucknell often demonstrated techniques to 'modernise' older properties, most typically using cheap materials including hardboard and plywood to cover up architectural detail such as period doors and fireplaces, which at that time were considered unfashionable. This earned Bucknell the moniker 'Bodger' Bucknell. By the 1990s, some critics[who?] argued that he was largely responsible for millions of home owners altering their properties to a style that, in turn, is now considered dated again.
Sailing interest
From the mid-1960s Bucknell became increasingly involved in sailing and he and Jack Holt designed the popular Mirror Dinghy. He also designed a two-man canoe for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a catamaran for his wife and himself which he moored next to his house in St Mawes, Cornwall.
References
- ^ "Barry Bucknell". Making the Modern World. Archived from the original on 5 April 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2007.
- ^ Barker, Dennis (27 February 2003). "Barry Bucknell DIY hero to postwar women". The Guardian.
External links
- Whirligig TV website
- BBC News Online obituary
- Barry Bucknell at IMDb