David James Smith pops up in the BBC 2019 anniversary documentary on the day she was killed and the investigation that followed.
Well worth a watch for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
Ah interesting mentioning a few of the flings she had in the years that lead up to her death. You have to think there would be a glimmer of credible information if you scrutinised all those names again in a cold case review I bet.
Strange last bit about the BBC, what was the context behind that quote?
She was going to be a co-host on the Millennium coverage and I reckon if she had lived she'd have been the co-host on Strictly Come Dancing, that show started in May 2004 and can see the impact it has had on Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman's careers.
Just having a look at Smith's book.
First thing I noticed is that Jill Dando's family lived in a bungalow in Madam Lane in Worle, Weston-Super-Mare. Odd coincidence but my cousin's wife's mother lived in a bungalow on that very road when I was a kid - my cousin was at least thirty years older than me. I visited the place a few times when we went down to Weston and I remember going blackberry picking there as it was right on the edge of town. Incidentally my cousin and his family lived in the same road (Weston Crescent) as Cary Grant's half-brother and Grant was a regular visitor. I grew up (and live) five minutes walk from the house (in Horfield, Bristol) where Grant was born, and when he visited Bristol he used to go to Bristol City matches with a neighbour of ours. Boo! I'm a Rovers fan - their ground is just up the road - but the less said about that the better. There are also some Dandos on my mother's side of the family (from Gloucestershire), and I once by chance stumbled into Jill's Garden in the small but rather wonderful Grove Park in Weston.
Below: Grant with his half-brother and his wife in Weston Crescent, Horfield, Bristol.
Anyway enough about me!
In chapter four of the book Smith writes about a dinner at the Criterion. Piccadilly Circus, on 19 January 1999, where Jill's future was being discussed with her agent, Jon Roseman and some BBC bigwigs. Roseman was worried about her career. Smith writes that Jill had "a big hole to fill" as she would no longer be reading the news, and had decided to give up
Holiday. Anne Morrison, the head of factual programmes at the BBC, ran through the options. All Jon could hear were vague ideas and "Carol Vorderman cast-offs". "There was still
Crimewatch, a couple of
Panoramas...but not a lot else". Peter Salmon, the controller of BBC1, told Jill she should consider doing some radio. Roseman said that what the BBC was offering was "an insult to Jill". Salmon was "very angry" and Jill was highly embarrassed.
Below: Carol Vorderman's old back garden in "an idyllic part" of Bristol, near the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Mine is not quite up to this standard! She lived there for twenty years but very recently moved back to North Wales.
A short time later Jane Lush, BBC head of daytime TV, Jill's "talent contact" there, and former editor of
Holiday, who had been at the Criterion dinner, had lunch with Des Lynam and he proposed that as he was thinking of giving up his role as a sports presenter he and Jill could become the Beeb's version of Richard and Judy. They were due to do the Millennium Night presentation together. When Jane told Jill about this she was "incredibly flattered" but worried about daytime TV not being as important as prime-time.
Smith writes "Later, amid the hyperbole surrounding her death, it might have seemed as if she was at the peak of her career, lauded by the BBC as an icon, so loved and cherished by the corporation that it would have done anything for her,. but that was not how it felt at the time, not to Jill." Alan Farthing apparently thought that Jill felt that she might be becoming "yesterday's girl."
Through a contact Jon Roseman fixed up a meeting with David Liddiment ("ITV's most senior executive"), who was enthusiastic about getting Jill for ITV and said she could have her choice of factual programmes and read the News at Ten when Trevor McDonald wasn't doing it. But Jill had doubts and didn't want to give up
Crimewatch.
Beliow: Nigel Dando, Jill's brother, in Jill's Garden, Weston-Super Mare.
