Bernard Adams, a producer of more than 20 serialised television documentaries for the BBC from the 1960s to the 1990s, has died aged 86. His work, mainly for schools and continuing education programmes, included Better Badminton (1979), a look at a sport in which he had excelled as a national junior champion, and Berliners (1990), on the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Career and later writing
Following retirement from the BBC, Adams went on to write five books and two plays. These included Fierce Love (2022), a biography of Mary O’Malley, the founder-director of the Lyric Players theatre, Belfast, and The Fall (2013), a play commemorating the 150th anniversary of his local church, Christ Church, East Sheen, in south-west London.
Adams was born in Dublin to Barney, a vet, and Marie (nee Rainsford), a housewife. He was a boarder at Portora Royal school in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, before studying English and Spanish at Trinity College Dublin in the late 1950s. He started his career in 1962 as a reporter on the Belfast Telegraph, where he met Mona Logan, who worked there as a secretary.
Personal life and legacy
They married in 1965 and decided to try their luck in London, where Adams got a job writing for the Radio Times magazine, before switching to BBC TV as a producer and working in that role until his retirement in 1994. Afterwards he continued with freelance work while pursuing his other writing.
In addition to his warmth, kindness and generosity, Adams had a remarkable wit. In 2018, Mona won a seat on Richmond council in south-west London and became deputy mayor, after which Adams accompanied her at the many events she attended.
Mona died in 2019; he is survived by their daughters, Polly and Amy, five grandchildren and one great-grandson.
