FOR those of us growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, one voice more than any other brought the future into our homes each week.

Raymond Baxter presented Tomorrow's World for 14 years. In 1967, just one hour after completing the world's first heart-transplant surgery, Dr Christian Barnard in South Africa was interviewed over the telephone by Baxter live on Tomorrow's World. Just one of the dozens of exciting episodes told in his precise and easy-to-read style in Tales Of My Time.

Baxter was more than just a TV presenter, however. He was a war hero as well. The opening sequence of this book is the tale of Baxter's part in the daring low-level Spitfire raid on the Germans' V1 and V2 headquarters in the Hague.

You might think this would be the highlight of the book, but there are plenty more to match it. Joining the British Forces News, Baxter reported on the Berlin Airlift, before moving to the BBC and becoming one of the most distinctive, pioneering voices and faces of the early days of British television. Whether it was royal events, such as the coronation, or his coverage of the Farnborough air shows for 30 years; or whether it was in motor sport, where he covered most of the great races of the era including 14 Monte Carlo Rallies (he took part in several of them), he spoke as someone who loved life and relished every aspect of it.

Thoroughly recommended.

Updated: 16:32 Friday, December 02, 2005