Martin Noble was a pioneer of television in Yorkshire - indeed a man of many achievements.
Educated at Giggleswick School he had an “old style” journalistic career starting with the Stockport Express under the pioneering Kemsley Training Scheme and then progressing to the Manchester Evening News, the Daily Telegraph in Manchester and Fleet Street before joining the BBC.
Mr Noble, 78, of Brockholes, was one of the handpicked team to establish BBC TV in Leeds and became the longest-serving producer of Look North which, in 1981, he “twinned” with its then West German equivalent Hier und Heute for a series of week-long programmes.
Subsequently he was, by curious coincidence, in Paris with a film crew when the French police arrested Lord Kagan.
His prime interest was aviation and his documentary about the 1967 Stockport air disaster was subsequently screened in 21 countries and became a training film for accident investigators.
He also produced documentaries about Yorkshire pioneer Robert Blackburn and the Buccaneer fighter. His proudest tie was that as a member of the 1,000 mph club awarded to him for his BBC commentary as he flew in a Lightning fighter through the sound barrier over the North Sea.
He took early retirement to write about aviation fulltime with Airline World/Travel Weekly and then became Air Transport Correspondent of Interavia in Geneva and UK correspondent of the French weekly Air&Cosmos. He was also on the international panel of judges for the annual Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards.
He travelled the world including the Canadian High Arctic where he narrowly escaped death when the door of a light ski-plane fell open and the pilot managed to grab him by the scruff of the neck and haul him back in.
Locally he was a member of the Holme Valley Parish Council for eight years and founding chairman of the Brockholes Village Trust for which he negotiated the purchase of the old village school for just £1.
Perhaps his legacy is the village’s Toll Bar signpost on the A616 replicated from the original discovered in his coal cellar and since donated to the Tolson Museum.
Martin’s other major interest was rugby union. A former secretary of Huddersfield RUFC he was a pioneer of mini-rugby in England and its major publicity promoter.
He himself played before becoming a referee until he was 50 and then a Yorkshire RFU Referees Society Assessor.
He leaves a wife, Bryden, sons Andrew and Nick, and grandchildren Jack and Isobel.
The funeral will take place on Tuesday, March 4, at 11.30am at St Georges Church, Brockholes, followed by a private cremation.
