Lessons in longevity from Nicholas Parsons - UnHerd

Lessons in longevity from Nicholas Parsons - UnHerd

Nicholas Parsons, host of the BBC Radio 4 panel quiz "Just A Minute" since its debut in 1967, has died this week at the age of 96. Simon Evans ponders his longevity.

"So, how has a Host, a mere persona really, who was I imagine, a little outdated when he first accepted a challenge for Repetition, survived perhaps the most tumultuous decades of cultural revolution the Nation has known since the Civil War, and bow out at the final curtain without having so much as rolled up the sleeves of his boating blazer?

"The answer is of course - because of his refusal to change. Parsons saw off The Beatles, The Sex Pistols and The Prodigy, The Dot Com Boom and Crash, The Walkman, the fax machine and the digital watch, without so much as a gesture towards modernity. ... Sir Nicholas gave not one inch."

You can listen to a rebroadcast of "Just A Minute: 50 Years in 28 Minutes" and a 50th anniversary interview with Nicholas Parsons on the BBC website through February 27, 2020.

(One of the things I had dearly hoped to do during my time in England, but which never materialized, was to attend a recording of "Just A Minute.")