This was Newsroom, broadcast at 7.30pm and the first news programme to have dual presenters John Timpson, later of Today on Radio 4, was his partner Woods later presented news on BBC1. In 1976 one of his programmes was faded out when viewers rang to complain that the newsreader was slurring his words. Woods was also, notably, filmed walking in the front rank of the Freedom Marchers in Alabama and interviewing Martin Luther King as he led the column towards a cordon of State police.Three years later Woods returned to the BBC to present, on BBC2, the first news programme in colour. A report that he was suffering from a brain tumour turned out to befalse, much to ITN’s relief.In New York, one of Woods’s first successes was to secure an interview with the Duke of Windsor, the first he gave at any length to British television. He was found to have a condition requiring immediate treatment. The specialist he had been interviewing was worried by the look of his eyes and insisted that he come back to have them tested. They made a great impression on ITN, who engaged Woods in 1964 to set up their operation in the United States.
On his last day at the BBC Woods was sent to cover a medical story.

His BBC reports were regularly recorded in toto on location rather than merely topped and tailed on the spot with the narration provided by the newsroom. He had been with the Daily Sketch following six years on the Daily Mirror, for which he had written a world exclusive after making a parachute landing in Suez during the 1956 attack. He had previously worked for the Daily Mail and the Yorkshire Post. He was said to be the first journalist recruited by BBC News from the tabloid press. He was a pioneer in using the new sound film camera not merely as an instrument for interviewing, but as a tool for compiling complete reports in the field

Woods joined the BBC in 1960. A tall, heavy man with a forthright manner, he was immediately recognisable on the screen. Peter Woods was one of the first Fleet Street journalists to make a successful transition from the printed word to location reporting for television.

Throughout his working life he worked instead towards a consistently high humanistic standard in the many children’s books and fewer adult novels he illustrated right up to his death just before his 75th birthday.Nicholas TuckerRobin Jacques, artist and illustrator: born 27 March 1920; married 1943 Patricia Bamford (deceased), 1958 Azetta van der Merwe (deceased; one son), thirdly Alexandra Mann (marriage dissolved); died 18 March 1995.. Stupid characters avoid any eye contact at all in their rush to get everything wrong. But their occasional ugliness was still comic rather than grotesque; there is none of the cruelty of contemporary satire in any of Jacques’s drawings. This static quality, even in the middle of otherwise violent action, was typical of Jacques’s style. These were drawings over which children could always take their time, observing every detail at leisure without ever feeling rushed towards the next sequence.The characters he created were individuals rather than types.