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Graham Watts obituary

My husband Graham Watts, who has died aged 97, was a television producer and director at Rediffusion in the 1950s and 60s (where I first met him and later became his production assistant). He was director of outside broadcasts, covering sports events, the budget, general elections, public religious events and the arts, and spent four years planning ITV’s coverage of Winston Churchill’s state funeral, all arranged long before the former prime minister’s death in 1965.

Then he and I both moved to Yorkshire Television, covering mainly adult education. He was asked to create Farmhouse Kitchen, a series about everyday home-cooking, which began in 1971, and was produced and directed by Graham and me. It was instantly popular, ran until 1990, and sold more than 4 million recipe books.

Graham was born in Twickenham, Surrey, the youngest of three children of Charles Watts, a civil servant, and his wife, Catherine (nee Edmunds). After leaving the Vine school in Richmond, he was sent to public school in Warwick. He despised it and left without qualifications, “my parents’ money wasted”. But his father helped him into the BBC as a junior maintenance engineer.

He was called up for wartime service in the army (with the REME), and spent some time in Forces Broadcasting in Norway and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). After demob, he went back to BBC radio, where he met Pat Griffiths – they were married in 1948.

He stayed with the BBC until 1955 when, pestering the head of news for a job in TV, he was told “You can take it from me, Watts, there will be no room in television for news” – and left for Rediffusion and later Yorkshire TV. By the late 60s he and Pat had separated, and they subsequently divorced.

Graham and I were married in 1974. Making our home in Wensleydale, near the market town of Hawes, in 1983 we set up our own production company and managed our TV contracts to allow sailing in summer and work in winter. Graham’s forbears were seafarers, his father’s family Devon traders and his mother’s Bristol Channel pilots.

Graham fitted out two cruising yachts and designed a third for long distance sailing. In 1995 we set off to sail alone around the world. It took two years to prepare and almost two for the journey. He liked to share his passion for sailing, and many members of the wider family made it to Plymouth last year for a trip on one of the few remaining original Bristol Channel pilot cutters. Even in January this year Graham and I made it to Antarctica on a cruise-ship and had planned a trip to the Baltic.

He is survived by me, and by his children, Katie, Olly and Will, from his first marriage, six grandchildren, Joe, Charlie Louis, Elliot, Rebecca and Otis, and a great-grandson, Kareem.