Stewart Brooke-Wavell

Stewart Brooke-Wavell, or Stewart Wavell (1921–2010), was a British Malayan broadcaster, sound recordist and writer, and a member of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Life

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Born in British Malaya, Wavell became a broadcaster with Radio Malaya, presenting programmes about the course of the Malayan Emergency in 1953, establishing their Sound Library, and pioneering their phone-in broadcasting.[1] Between 1954 and 1962 he also produced or participated in a number of programmes or segments for the BBC, including coverage of the royal tour of the Commonwealth in 1954,[2] and a profile of Tom Harrisson broadcast on 30 September 1960.[3] His main interests were folklore, cultural anthropology, and exploration, and he was known for his field recordings in these areas.[4][5] In 1960 he was the BBC's Burmese programme organiser,[6] and in 1963 he accompanied a Cambridge University expedition to locate the ancient "lost" kingdoms of Langkasuka and Tambralinga.

In the late 1960s he served as director of training for the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation, and wrote a training manual for them.[7] By 1976 he was living in Surrey, England,[8] and working as head of the BBC's Far Eastern Service.[9] He died in Croydon on 16 September 2010.[10]

His brother was Bruce Brooke-Wavell.

Publications

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  • The Lost World of the East (1958)
  • The Naga King's Daughter (1965)
  • with Audrey Butt and Nina Epton, Trances (1966)[11][12][13]
  • The Art of Radio (1969)
  • A Dream of Kinabalu (1988)
  • Great Cobra Mountain (1990)

References

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  1. ^ Peter J. Bloom, "The Language of Counterinsurgency in Malaya", in Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia, edited by Ian Aitken (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), p. 76.
  2. ^ https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/0e5ed80d7f7f4e198aab37b2c7bda412 Radio Times TV Announcements for Monday May 17, 1952 - 7.50 Commonwealth Journey
  3. ^ "Schedule - BBC Programme Index".
  4. ^ Patrick Newman, Tracking the Weretiger: Supernatural Man-Eaters of India, China and Southeast Asia (Jefferson NC and London, 2012), pp. 39-40, 129-132.
  5. ^ "The Sound of History". New Straits Times. 2017.
  6. ^ Exploration Review (1960), pp. 25-27.
  7. ^ Nandana Karuṇānāyaka, Broadcasting in Sri Lanka (Centre for Media and Policy Studies, 1990), pp. 161-167.
  8. ^ Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 49:1 (1976), p. 271.
  9. ^ The Listener, 96 (1976), p. 178.
  10. ^ "Death announcements". The Daily Telegraph.
  11. ^ Reviewed by Douglass Price-Williams in Man, New Series, 2:3 (1967), p. 475.
  12. ^ Reviewed by Philip Snow in The Geographical Journal, 133:3 (1967), pp. 397-398.
  13. ^ Review by P. Spindler in Anthropologischer Anzeiger, 31:1/2 (1968), p. 144.