The recording of his voice will be played again this September. "This is Radio 2, the Light Programme". It was a moment in radio history of which he was justly proud. He was to make something of a career out of launching radio stations - later came Radio 210, Blue Danube Radio and Vienna International Radio. The voice is that of Paul Hollingdale whose death, at the age of 83, was announced this week.
Paul was born in Brighton in 1938. I can find nothing about his early upbringing or education other than the fact that as a lad he appeared as an extra in the 1947 film release of, aptly enough, Brighton Rock.
His National Service was in the RAF and he was eventually posted to RAF Wahn in Germany, fairly close to the headquarters of the British Forces Network in Cologne. He was keen to get into radio and after helping out in the gramophone library was offered the chance to produce a Latin American dance programme. Soon after he was in front of the microphone as one of the BFN's team of announcers looking after the early morning show Musical Clock. His passion was the cinema, perhaps spurred by that early dalliance with filming in Brighton, and he used to broadcast film programmes whilst with the BFN. It was in 1959 that he made his first appearance on the BBC as the host of the German leg of Two-Way Family Favourites.
Back in the UK in 1960 Paul was looking for work when he met up with Canadian DJ Doug Stanley, who'd also appeared on BFN Cologne. Stanley had set up the grandly named Commercial Neutral Broadcasting Company Ltd - "your friendly host of the Dutch coast" - an English speaking pirate radio station based on Radio Veronica's ship the MV Borkum Rift. Paul, who by now has also found work in the London studios of Radio Luxembourg on the Phillips sponsored The Six O'Clock Record Show, joined CNBC from autumn 1960 and stayed there to the summer of 1961.
In late 1961 Paul was back on dry land working freelance both for the BBC on shows Teenagers' Turn, Playtime and Things are Swingin' as well as appearing on Radio Luxembourg as one of the announcers out in the Grand Duchy on shows such as The Big 'O' Show sponsored by Oriole Records.
At this point I'll let Paul take up the story: "I had been working for Radio Luxembourg since the early sixties, either as a London based DJ presenting sponsored shows, or living as a resident on the Grand Duchy. I was in fact there for two and a half years. At Easter in April 1964 I travelled to Amsterdam with another DJ, a friend called Don Wardell, as we had heard that Radio Caroline was being launched that weekend. Because the signal would be inaudible, we decided on Holland because it was near the coast. We heard the first broadcast with Simon Dee and I told Don, that in my opinion, this launch would change the whole history of UK Radio. During the Summer we heard the impact that Caroline was having, and I made a decision to leave 208 and return to London in September of that year. I heard that the BBC were looking for contract announcers and I applied and got a job".
Having joined the Presentation team, working for Andrew Timothy, he would do the usual rounds of news bulletins, continuity announcements, concert introductions and gramophone record shows like Morning Music, Delaney's Delight, Mack is Back, Swing Into Summer, Stay Lateand the first editions of Nord-Ring.
Here's Paul again: "One of my first hurdles was to handle the death of Churchill which I announced with all the protocol that went with that on that Sunday morning in January 1965. Andrew Timothy told me that I would have to be de-luxembourgised and I was directed to listen to various announcers like Colin Doran, Frank Phillips and Tim Gudgin.
Because of my versatility, during the next couple of years I was put to work presenting an eclectic mix of series like Music in the Peter York Manner and Mack is Back, a big band show with the then very popular Ken MacIntosh and his Orchestra broadcast from the Playhouse Theatre down by the Thames embankment. There were others like occasional programmes on the then Home Service with such groups as the Novelairs directed by Edward Rubach. I was also involved in Nord-Ring, where I presented various light music concerts travelling around Europe which were aired on the Light Programme. In between all of that, I was a newsreader on Radio Newsreel and did occasional shows for the World Service.
I then began working with (producer) Doreen Davies on the show Swing Into Summer - a three hour afternoon segment. In fact I was used at every opportunity and from 1964 to the start of Radio 2 in 67 - I probably presented more shows than anyone else. The reason for this was that many of the older brigade of announcers like Frank Phillips, Alvar Liddell, John Snagge, John Webster etc. couldn't quite believe that changes were in the air and so they didn't want to involve themselves and weren't in tune with the trends in pop music at that time. Apart from that they were all coming into the final furlong of their careers at the Beeb.
By 1965 the long running Morning Music sequence, which was un-announced except for time checks, news and weather, was in need of a change and Breakfast Special came in being. So some of the 'Light' announcers such John Roberts, Peter Latham, John Dunn and myself were given the show to present on a turnabout basis. It was then they decided to introduce a limited amount of 'needletime' into the shows - one disc every fifteen minutes. And there were inserts of vocals from groups like The Settlers, The Peter King Chorale, Lois Lane etc".
In September 1967 came that famous opening announcement, Controller Robin Scott having chosen Paul for the task. If the usual Saturday morning pattern had been followed that would have fallen to Bruce Wyndham.
Paul continued to appear on Radio 2's Breakfast Special, presenting his final show on Friday 2 January 1970. Remarkably an off-air recording exists of that show. "Hello and good morning everyone. This is yours truly Paul Hollingdale here for the very last time..."
No reason was given for Paul's departure but in 2012 he candidly told me what had occurred backstage and I hope that he wouldn't mind me repeating the story: "I have never mentioned this before but my departure was very curious. The then Controller of the Network, Douglas Muggeridge, didn't particularly like me on the air, despite the fact that I was very popular with the listeners. One day I was called to his office to say that I would be coming off Breakfast Special and that was it. As there was no explanation - I told him that I wouldn't mind returning to announcer duties - but he was emphatic he wanted me out of the building. I had no confrontation with the man. I hardly knew him as he was tucked away in his office most of the time together with all the other 'suits.' My departure created a lot of problems at the time as there was no-where else to go. I have to tell you that I felt a lot of anguish at the time of my leaving, as I had given every hour of my life to the station, even taking up residence In Hallam Street adjacent to Broadcasting House".
In the event Paul headed back to his home town of Brighton, for a while working freelance on BBC Radio Brighton and also meeting up with local singer Johnny Wakelin whom he ended up managing for a few years.
Regular radio work beckoned again when Radio 210 opened in Reading in early 1976, again Paul was the first voice on-air, or strictly speaking the first DJ, if you count Arthur Lowe's appearance as Captain Mainwaring. Paul recalled that "210 started very middle of the road. That didn't last long and a few months later we were playing Top 40 stuff."
In 1979 Paul helped found and launched the English-speaking service from ORF, the Austrian state broadcaster, Blue Danube Radio. Initially he would split his time between Vienna and the UK but eventually his beloved Vienna would become his home for many years. During the 1980s and 90s he was also heard on Chiltern Radio (audio here), presented film programmes and reviews on LBC, Radio Luxembourg and Sky TV and was part of the launch line-up for Country 1035.
Blue Danube Radio closed in 2000 but Paul continued to work for ORF and other companies such as Inflight Productions. In September 2007 he made a one-off return to the BBC for Radio 2's 40th anniversary to recall his role in the start of the network. (audio here) In October 2012 he launched his final radio project, an English-speaking news and music station, Vienna International Radio. Here's Paul on VIR on 14 November 2013.
In recent months Paul gave an extensive interview about the Light Programme and Radio 2 for inclusion in a couple of documentaries produced by Made in Manchester that are to air on Radio 2 this autumn. Ever the radio professional, whilst in his hospital bed he continued to record reports for Vienna International Radio. He died of cancer on the morning of 5 July.
Paul Trevor Anthony Hollingdale 1934-2017
I never met Paul but from 2012 onwards we had an email correspondence about his radio career and he was always more than willing to help me with my research for the blog. On occasions I was able to provide him with copies of some of his old shows and he was grateful for being reunited with his earlier self. He once told me that "I always enjoy your gems from the past. I think most people in radio in the UK think I have retired to Eastbourne and residing in the Home for the Bewildered DJs. How wrong they are". I was saddened to hear of his death and I hope that this tribute goes some way to providing a more complete picture of the career of a broadcaster whose role in radio history is assured.
The hundreds of shoppers who daily pass by Urban Outfitters and Schuh on London's Oxford Street will be unaware that the building above them played a part in Britain's wartime broadcasting effort. Yet it was the place where George Orwell broadcast to India and Ed Murrow to the States. It was where John Arlott started his career as a radio producer, at one point working alongside a young David Jacobs. And it was where a girl in the typing pool called Jean Metcalfe got her first opportunity to be in front of the microphone.
Behind 200 Oxford Street cut through Great Portland Street and then take a right down Market Place and there's a clue for those that spot the plaque on the wall just next to the entrance of what is now known as Orwell Studios. It reads: "From June 1942 for fifteen years, this building was the headquarters of the BBC Overseas Services. During the war direct broadcasts were made to America from the roof while air-raids were in progress, The BBC vacated the premises in November 1957".
In the early days of the Second World War the BBC was asked by the Government to treble its output abroad so increasing the scale of both its Overseas and European Services, then based at Broadcasting House. Also for security reasons some departments were being re-located, hence the move out to Wood Norton in Worcestershire for the likes of the drama staff.
During 1940 the various parts of the BBC's Empire Service found itself split up over three sites. Most of what would be the European Services was shifted to Bush House - after having first being evacuated to Maida Vale - others were billeted to Aldenham House in Hertfordshire and Abbey Manor near Evesham.
In June1941 BBC engineers indentified the basement of what was then the Peter Robinson department store, just round the corner from Broadcasting House in Oxford Street, as suitable for wartime studios. A surprising decision perhaps as the store had been ravaged by bombing in September 1940 - Broadcasting House itself was hit the following month.
Anyway the menswear department moved out of the basement and the BBC moved in to build the nine (later thirteen) studios and a control room. Some office accommodation was then added to the floors above and from June 1942 staff from both Aldenham House and Abbey Manor moved in.
In fact, as the plaque in Market Place attests, this wasn't the building's first association with broadcasting. During those famous Ed Murrow rooftops descriptions of London throughout the Blitz, the US correspondent had used the top of 200 Oxford Street as one of his vantage points, though he never revealed this at the time.
Although the upper floors of the building are now named after George Orwell, his time at the BBC as an Eastern Services producer and broadcaster were described by the novelist as "two wasted years." His diary reflects that "much of the stuff that goes out from the BBC is just shot into the stratosphere, not listened to by anybody".
Staff at 200 Oxford Street would jokingly refer to the building as the ZOO. The studios themselves were perhaps not best placed for noise pollution from the nearest tube line. Edward Pawley's history of BBC Engineering explains: "Just as the noise from the Bakerloo Tube could be heard in the basement studios of Broadcasting House when it was opened in 1932, the noise of the underground trains on the Central London Line could be heard in some of the studios at 200 Oxford Street, which were about 50 ft below ground level. It was, in fact, possible to distinguish the arrival and departure of the trains, and the opening and closing of their doors. One of the many overseas visitors who came to visit Bush House after the war claimed that he had been able to identify a particular studio when listening 5000 miles away by the sound of the underground trains — and he was right."
Before her time presenting Forces Favourites (later Family Favourites) Jean Metcalfe had joined the BBC's General Office in the summer of 1940. She soon moved across to the Empire Service to help deal with the fan mail that came in for the announcers. Jean takes up the story of how she got her break into broadcasting: "the Service was expanding with the need to keep overseas territories in touch with London and soon we were moved from our makeshift office in the Restaurant Annexe of Broadcasting House, with its food smells and plasterboard partitions, to 200 Oxford Street, the old Peter Robinson building. Now there were dozens of us working twenty-four hours a day on the Overseas Service. My work became more clerical than secretarial, thank God, and even brought me glimpses of the studios below grounds. One joyous day, May 24th 1941, Noel Iliff asked me to read Thomas Nashe's poem Spring, the sweet Spring in a programme he was producing, Books and People at 1500 GMT. The refrain 'Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo' would sound silly, he said, in the deep voice of the presenter, the novelist Gerald Bullet. It sounded pretty silly in mine too, I thought. However, it didn't matter if only a handful of homesick Kenyan planters would hear me, I was on the wireless - at last."
BBC producer Trevor Hill was one of the BBC staff, at that time a Programme Engineer, who made the move round the corner to Oxford Street where he worked on Radio Newsreel and many other programmes: "My job, when I started work at 200 Oxford Street in the Continuity Studios, was to play music on gramophone records besides complete programmes recorded by the BBC on seventeen-inch 'slow speed' discs. That was in the days before microgrooves had been invented. The BBC slow speed records would have things like Front Line Family recorded on them. Then there was the Epilogue. On a particular Sunday evening when I was working in the Continuity Studio for the Pacific Service I had a very nice Australian announcer on duty with me, Isabel Ann Shead. The trusting Ann turned to me and asked what was next on that day's Routine Transmission Schedule. I consulted the document. 'Oh, it's the old E-pill-o-gog,' I replied facetiously. Miss Shead went into action. 'This is the Pacific Service of the BBC.' We were allowed the slightest reverential pause for such a Sunday transmission. 'The E-pill-o-gog!' declared the good lady for all to hear."
David Jacobs was briefly based at 200 Oxford Street after the war when he joined the BBC as an announcer in a team that included Jack de Manio, Jean Metcalfe and Mary Malcolm. His recollection of his time there seems to be full of japes: "for instance during a band show at Hammersmith Palais de Danse, where I was sharing announcing duties with Mary Malcolm, Mary turned to me before one number and said 'I can't think of anything, David - what shall I say?''Oh, say the next tune reminds you of the film Sweater Girl,' I told her. Mary had not time to sort this out. She trustingly stepped up to the microphone and announced to a large section of the English-speaking world: 'The next number always reminds me of the film Sweater Girl. ladies and gentlemen, The Jersey Bounce!' And her horrified 'Oh, David, you're dreadful!' also went winging out on the waves before she stepped back again."
But it wasn't all high jinks for David. For a while he was also one of the readers on Book of Verse, produced by a recent recruit to the BBC staff, one John Arlott. David recalls:"One of the things John taught me was how to get a story told in thirty seconds or a minute with a beginning, a middle and an end. he had me looking out of the window of his room overlooking Oxford Street and said, 'Righto, here's a watch. I want you to tell me what's happening in that street. You have to start when I tell you and when it comes to thirty seconds you've got to be halfway through and knowing you've got thirty seconds to finish and at the minute you've got to have finished. Not a minute and one second, a minute.' He had me doing that for quite a time, which I found very attractive for two reasons. One, that he should take the trouble to do it, and two, that he was concerned that I should learn. Ever since, it's been very useful, because if somebody says ' Will you give me thirty seconds,' I can count in my head and do it."
The BBC continued to occupy 200 Oxford Street until late 1957 by which time any remaining staff were moved over to Bush House. The building then reverted back to retail use and was occupied by C&A for over forty years until the company closed down its UK business in 2001.
In 2006 the site was redeveloped by ORMS Architectural Design on behalf of Redevco (the ultimate owners of C&A's property portfolio) to create the retail space for Urban Outfitters and Shuh and then apartments above named Orwell Studios. With that rooftop view from which those wartime broadcasts were made you can now occupy a 2-bedroomed penthouse apartment for £1.7m.
'It shall not be lawful for a broadcast to be made from a ship or aircraft while it is in or over the United Kingdom or external waters, nor shall it be lawful for a broadcast to be made from a ship registered in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man or any of the Channel Islands or an aircraft so registered while the ship or aircraft is elsewhere than in or over the United Kingdom or external waters'.
So begins one of the most significant pieces of UK broadcasting legislation, the infamous Marine, and &c., Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967, enacted on 14 July 1967 and coming into force a month later, exactly 50 years this coming Monday.
Plenty has been written about that golden era of the offshore pirate stations and the machinations that ensued to kill them off - I have a large selection of such tomes on my bookshelf - so I'll not attempt to summarise it here.
What better way to celebrate the pirate radio days than with a couple of airchecks from two veteran broadcasters. I'm not sure how widely available these recordings are but they were given to me by ex-City and Caroline DJ Tom Edwards.
Firstly from 6 September 1966 its Roger 'Twiggy' Day "moving and grooving" on his evening show on Radio England.
The second offering is Paul Burnett broadcasting on Radio 270 off the coast at Scarborough. This is part of the breakfast show from 14 February 1967.
Over the weekend you can relive the Swinging Sixties on Pirate Radio Essex live from onboard the LV18. And on Monday evening over on BBC Radio 2 there's Johnnie Walker Meets ...the Pirates.
There is an interesting sidebar to the history of BBC in its pre-local radio era when the corporation was still wedded to 'the Regions'. Tantalising glimpses of it are evident in back issues of the Midlands editions of the Radio Times showing programmes "for East Anglia". The story of this 'hidden' network is told in the BBC Radio Norfolk documentary The Network That Never Wasto be broadcast on Bank Holiday Monday.
The Network That Never Was is a companion piece to Radio in a Roundabout Way that aired in 2012. In that documentary Paul Hayes, who has produced both programmes, concentrated on the Radio 4 VHF morning opt-outs for listeners in East Anglia from the late 1960s until 1980 when Radio Norfolk came on-air. This new documentary rewinds the story to the late 1950s and early 60s when VHF broadcasting was still in its infancy and only one in five wireless sets had a VHF waveband.
First, a brief history lesson. Regional broadcasting had existed since the late 1920s but had been collapsed, together with the National Programme, into one Home Service during the war. Post-war the BBC offered a main Home Service schedule emanating from London but with programme contributions from the regional centres. If you lived in one of the regions your own regional Home Service carried its own alternative programmes at certain times of the day complete with its own announcers and news bulletins.
Map from the 1958 BBC Handbook shows how Norfolk, Suffolk , Peterborough and Cambridge are part of the Midland region. Prior to the opening of the Tacolneston transmitter mast only Norfolk was part of the Midland region served by the MW transmitter at Postwick,. The rest of the eastern counties took the main Home Service programmes from London.
It was the introduction of VHF broadcasting in the mid 1950s that allowed for what the BBC termed "area broadcasting" as each of the new transmitters covered an area smaller than the existing regions. The idea seems to have brainwave of the forward-thinking Head of Programmes for the West Region, Frank Gillard (who would later be critical in the roll-out of BBC local radio) who proposed An Extension of Regional Broadcasting to his BBC bosses in February 1955. When the transmitter mast at Tacolneston, south-west of Norwich, was constructed in late 1956 it allowed that area to offer occasional opt-outs from the main Midland Home Service programmes, though usually only 10 or 15 minutes at a time.
By 1958 the BBC Handbook was reporting that "the Norwich transmitter, which comes under Midland Region, is putting out, in addition to news, talks and discussion of purely East Anglian interest, which will be heard only by listeners with VHF sets in East Anglia". This had followed a similar area split in the north-east when Pontop Pike came online and was also a service offered to listeners in Devon and Cornwall, part of the West of England region, when the transmitter mast at North Hessary Tor was brought into commission.
Radio Times 25 March 1967 shows two programmes for East Anglia
VHF-only programmes aimed at the East Anglia audience started on Tuesday 5 February 1957 with an introductory 10 minutes linked by former talks producer David Bryson who'd been appointed as the BBC's 'East Anglia Representative'. Early programmes were either news bulletins, just one a day after the main six o'clock news for the first decade, a 5-minute Saturday teatime sports report with Ted Chamberlain, a programme for farmers with Gordon Moseley, a what's on guide, a topical magazine initially billed as East Anglian Highlights and a series of talks and stories under the title Through East Anglian Eyes, an early contributor being Eric Fowler.
The small team based at St Catherine's Close off All Saints Green in Norwich didn't just produce these VHF-only opt-outs but contributed programmes on behalf of the Midland region such as Signpost and Midlands Miscellany. Signpost was a 10-minute magazine programme alternating Monday to Thursday across the Midlands region with the West and South Midlands produced by the talks staff in Birmingham on Monday and Wednesday, the East Midland Representative based in Nottingham, Gerald Nethercot (later the first manager of BBC Radio Nottingham), looking after Tuesday and East Anglia featured on Thursday.
The Norwich team also produced occasional editions of shows heard nationwide including Woman's Hour, Morning Story and a series called Down to the Sea. In 1959 the adjoining TV studio went into service to allow interview contributions to the network and a short regional nightly news bulletin.
Part of the PasB record for the 4 March 1959 Norwich City replay commentary (Document from BBC Written Archives as posted in the gallery for The Network That Never Was).
All this seems rather low-key but the area broadcasting from Norwich did occasionally hit the jackpot. In 1959 Third Division Norwich City had an unexpected run to the semi-finals of the FA Cup that captured the nation's imagination. The VHF service was able to obtain agreement to broadcast full live commentaries of Norwich's midweek replays against Spurs, Sheffield United and Luton Town. This was something of a broadcasting coup as few full match commentaries were ever aired aside from the FA Cup Final itself. The commentary for the whole game was provided by team that would normally just do the second-half coverage for the Light Programme. BBC records for the 4 March replay against Sheffield, for instance, show that Allan Clarke and Emrys Walters commentated both for the East Anglian VHF service and the Light Programme with John Ecclestone, the regional programmes producer, introducing the coverage.
But perhaps the East Anglian VHF service's most interesting contribution, even if of dubious cultural value, to the national consciousness was the rise to (albeit brief) fame of Allan Smethurst, aka The Singing Postman (pictured above) who became something of a TV celebrity with the song Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy? An audition tape had been sent in to Ralph Tuck who, in 1965, was presenting the Wednesday morning opt-out called, somewhat unimaginatively, Wednesday Morning, billed as "notes on the people and happenings of the week". Smethurst became a regular guest on the programme with his Norfolk dialect songs. They were picked up nationally when Jack de Manio featured him on Today and an EP of his songs was released by Ralph Tuck's own Lowestoft-based record label. The story of The Singing Postman is told is this 1967 film held by the East Anglian Film Archive.
Seemingly nothing of the East Anglia news bulletins has survived in the archives but listeners in that area may recall the name of the grandly titled Lieutenant-Colonel R. E. S. Ingram-Johnson who read the news between 1958 and 1967. Known to friends and colleagues as Inkie he'd served in the Dogra Regiment in India and on the North-West Frontier where he happened to gain experience as a sports commentator. With the BBC in Norwich he did occasional football and cricket reports as well as reading over 2,000 news bulletins.
Jean Goodman portrait by Edward Seago
The other well-known voice from the VHF-only service is surely Jean Goodman. A Yorkshire-born print journalist she'd moved to Norfolk on her marriage and became a features writer for the Eastern Daily Press. With the arrival of the radio service from Norwich she became a regular correspondent and presented the What's On in East Anglia? slot until it ended with the close of the Home Service in 1967. From 1956 to 1978 Jean was a regular contributor to Woman's Hourand on several occasions would present the programme when it came from East Anglia. She briefly worked for Anglia TV and reported for BBC1's teatime news programmes East at Six-Ten (and later Look East) where in November 1963 she interviewed the Beatles. Disappointingly her 1973 autobiography Anything But Housework fails to virtually mention none of this with not a single specific reference to the BBC or Woman's Hour and of the meeting with Britain's top band she only writes "I had incurred the wrath of the Beatles' road manager, by offering one of the priceless quartet a powerful cold-cure tablet, just before a performance". Jean made regular appearances on the Radio 4 VHF opt-outs This is East Angliaand Roundabout East Anglia. She died in 2003.
The Network That Never Was also tells the story of the BBC radio station that never actually made a public broadcast, 'Radio Norwich'. This was one of a number of closed-circuit pilots organised by Frank Gillard as part of his plan to convince BBC management and ultimately the Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting of the corporation's case for providing what it called "the fourth service", i.e. the introduction of local radio. Again a plan that rested on the expansion of the VHF transmitter infrastructure.
Part of the draft programme schedule for Radio Norwich
(Document from BBC Written Archives as posted in the gallery
for The Network That Never Was).
The experimental station was a one-day affair, running from 6.28 am to 7.32 pm on Tuesday 20 June 1961, and followed earlier trails in Gillard's West region in Bristol and Portsmouth. Jack Johnston, the assistant news editor for the Midlands region in Birmingham came over to run it with producers Marigold Lawton, Michael Ford (later a Radio 2 Pebble Mill based producer) and Michael Gilliam.
Fortunately the radio correspondent of The Times provides plenty of evidence as to what was planned for 'Radio Norwich' and it does indeed sound like the blueprint for the local radio services that followed.
One of the features of this one-day experiment, which is under the aegis of the Midland Region, will be a radio-car touring the city and broadcasting direct into the programmes from various parts of the area. The day's programmes ... will comprise news, talks, discussion, music, guides to shopping and general entertainment. A programme specially selected designed for Norwich schools, interviews with tourists and holiday visitors to the city, local politics and hints on food prices will be included.
There will also be a request gramophone record programme entitled Your Street, in which people from a selected street will choose records for friends and neighbours; details of jobs available at the local labour exchange, and interviews with men serving in the 1st and 2nd East Anglian Regiments in Germany.
And the verdict the day after was a thumbs-up but with some salutary lessons learnt:
Today's programme was not a blueprint of the real thing. The plan was to try out as many ideas and features as could be conveniently fitted into the day's broadcast, so there was a much higher proportion of speech than would normally be the case. Secondly, the interviews were not all of the first rank and in one or two instances were unable to draw their subjects into the lively dialogue so vital for this type of service.
Nevertheless, it was clear that the framework of a worthwhile service was present and, as Mr David Porter, head of Midland Regional programmes, said, a selection and improvement would be based on today's performance. It was likely that a programme as presented today would in reality be stretched over several days. In fact, as everyone present realised, unless this was done it would be difficult if not impossible to find sufficient material to keep going. An obvious fault, considering that much of the service will be a background to the housewife's daily chores, was the length of interviews with citizens of Norwich. Some of these extended to five minutes or more with one person.
The programmes that seemed to go well were a live broadcast from a local market telling listeners what was available and at what prices (the reporter for this piece just happened to be Jean Goodman) and one in which letters from local residents were read out and, in the case of criticism, answered by the local council. "This roused some lively altercation" reported The Times.
Of course as we now know the sixteen closed circuit experiments gave the green light to the roll-out of the BBC's local radio stations from 1967 onwards. But ironically Norfolk and surrounding areas weren't included in that first tranche and had to wait until 1980 for the launch of BBC Radio Norfolk and a further ten years for BBC Radio Suffolk. That's why, to fill the gap, the BBC continued to provide a limited area service with Radio 4 opt-outs throughout the 70s. And that's the story previously told in Down Your Local - Roundabout East Anglia.
The Network That Never Was can be heard on BBC Radio Norfolk at 12 noon on Bank Holiday Monday. With thanks to Paul Hayes.
My abiding memory of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales twenty years ago this Thursday, is the almost surreal way the country was in limbo for a week following the tragic events in Paris. Half the country was in mourning for a woman they'd never met while the other half were bemused by their reaction. Mind you that didn't stop cynical old me recording some of the radio output on that Sunday as broadcasters tried to come to terms with the news and how to handle the death of a royal for which there'd been no rehearsals.
I didn't start recording earlier enough on Sunday 31 August 1997 to hear how the news was broken to the waking nation. By 10 am Radio 1 was already using back-to-back ambient music - some of the tracks are listed below - interspersed with announcements from Mark Goodier and extended news reports here with Richard Evans.
Many commercial radio stations came together to take IRN's bulletins and played instrumental tracks. I'm sure they featured more than just Kenny Gee's Songbird but that's all I recorded and have heard since on other recordings. This segment starts at 11.30 am and was taken from Viking Radio.
Radio 2 dropped its morning schedule (Good Morning Sunday remained but shifted to 9 am) and under normal circumstances would have aired a pre-recorded Desmond Carrington show at 1 pm. Des and producer Dave Alyott convinced controller Jim Moir that they could handle a live show from their home studio with an appropriate playlist. This recording starts with an extended 12-minute news bulletin read by Paul Leighton.
Back to Radio 1 and at 4 pm listeners would've expected to hear the UK Top 40 but both the BBC and the Network Chart from Capital were cancelled as a mark of respect. At the start of this recording Lisa I'Anson introduces Tina Ritchie with a 3-minute bulletin and then an announcement from Mark Goodier.
Both Radio 4 and 5 live combined resources throughout the day. This news special with Charlie Lee Potter and Allan Robb was broadcast at 5 pm.
Following the week of almost suspended animation, that and the clamouring for a public display of grief from the royal family, the funeral occupied most of the airtime on Saturday 6 September from 8.30 am. This is part of the BBC coverage carried across all stations. The announcer is David Miles and commentating in this clip are James Naughtie and Chris Stuart.
There are other off-air recordings from 31 August 1997 available online. Radio Tapes has airchecks from CBS and ABC in the States plus the BBC World Service as relayed by Minnesota Public Radio KNGA.
This webpage recreates the original MHP Pick of the Continuity Announcements page with reinstated audio and looks at the timeline mainly from a TV perspective.
In this blog post Matthew Rudd recalls working overnight at Viking FM as the news broke.
Radio 1's playlist on 31 August 1997 included:
The Last Stand - Aloof
The Tones - Nova Nova
Culture Clash - Sacred Spirit
After Life - Blue Bar
Pressure Drop - Dusk
Pat Metheny - Sueno Con Mexico
Sabres of Paradise - Haunted Dancehall
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Xmas Mr Lawrence
Apollo 440 - Stealth Mass in FM
Giorgio Moroder - Love's Theme from Midnight Express
Classic FM has been bringing you "the world's greatest music" for a quarter of a century. It launched on 7 September 1992, the first of the national radio services licensed under the long-awaited 1990 Broadcasting Act. I've been digging through my press cuttings to trace the pre-launch timeline.
The station's journey to air was a long and sometimes difficult one. As early as December 1987 The Independent was reporting that "the Red Rose-Really Useful consortium has outlined plans for a classical music station. David Maker, managing director of Red Rose Radio, claims that Radio 3 is failing to serve its audience".
The 1990 act had also established the new regulatory body of the Radio Authority (RA) and top of its agenda was the new Independent National Radio (INR) licences. In October 1990 it announced that, much to the relief of the existing ILR stations, the sole FM licence would be a "non-pop music service". The licence was advertised in January 1991 and straight away the Golden Rose consortium, headed by David Astor with David Maker as CEO, was identified as a key player. But actual bids were not forthcoming so the RA extended the deadline. By June they did receive three valid applications: Classic FM, First National Radio with their general show-business themed Showtimeproposal and UKFM promising easy listening and light classical music from a group pulling together the resources of Radio Clyde, Lord Hanson, French radio group NRJ, Scottish Television and investment company Trevor Clark.
Heath cartoon from The Sunday Times 25 August 1991
Behind the scenes there had been some frantic negotiations to pull the Classic FM bid together. Independently Ralph Bernard had been putting together a bid for the licence on behalf of the GWR Group under the name Gem FM; this had followed a successful classic music programme on Brunel Radio devised by Michael Bukht. When it seemed that the Golden Rose group was getting cold feet Bernard proposed that the two groups join forces and the completed bid was delivered to the RA "with literally minutes to spare".
Showtime bid £1.75m for the eight-year licence compared to £670,000 by Classic FM. It would then have to pay the Radio Authority £980,000 a year and 4% of its advertising to the Treasury. UKFM had the lowest bid at £0.30m. The RA was not particularly happy with the winning bid and its 'songs from the shows' format but nonetheless it was provisionally awarded the licence on 4 July subject to it securing all the funding by 16 August. When Showtime failed to meet the deadline it was offered to Classic FM with the same proviso about proving they had the funds to proceed.
Meanwhile the press was reporting on Classic FM's success. Maggie Brown writing in The Independent 20 August 1991 announced that the Radio Authority "yesterday awarded the coveted FM frequency to Classic FM, the runner-up in the original auction on 4 July. Authority members yesterday unanimously rejected a plea from Showtime Radio for extra time to raise money. Showtime, the original franchise winner and highest bidder, had promised to compete for Radio 2's greying listeners with theme tunes from film scores and musicals. David Maker, chief executive of Classic FM, said yesterday he was 'pleasantly surprised'. He promised a 'superb light classical service with a friendlier style of presentation from Radio 3', and added: 'We will unashamedly ride on the Pavarotti boom.' Mr Maker is aiming for an ambitious 10 per cent weekly share of the national radio audience."
However, the scrabble to secure funds was not straightforward and Golden Rose and GWR were split on how to proceed. Golden Rose were proposing a 'macro' deal with Jazz FM and Buzz FM in the mix whilst GWR managed to gain the backing of Time-Warner, DMGT and, at the eleventh hour, Sir Peter Michael. The financial documents were delivered to the RA on 30 September again with just minutes to spare.
Thus Ralph Bernard and GWR were now the key players behind Classic FM with David Astor as chairman of the group, John Spearman was appointed chief executive, Michael Bukht as programme controller, performing a similar role he'd done for Capital Radio, and broadcaster Robin Ray as music consultant.
The battle between BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM captured in this Chris Burke cartoon.
A year ahead of launch Paul Donovan of The Sunday Times was reporting how Classic FM's Chairman David Astor saw the station's position in the market: "It's not correct to portray us as a straight rival to Radio 3. We will be seeking Radio 2 and Radio 4 listeners as well. We want to achieve that essence of Radio 4, which is that you know what you're going to hear whatever time of day you tune in. Our target audience is 25-54, ABC1, with a slight male bias".
Radio 3 controller John Drummond was withering about the new station: "I don't see Classic FM as a rival to Radio 3. They won't be playing on the same ground. They're an alternative music channel and I think there's room for both of us. Certainly there is no question of Radio 3 going downmarket because of the advent of a light classical station. We will not be changing." In the event there were some changes. A year later, under incoming controller Nicholas Kenyon, Radio 3 re-jigged its schedule and launched a glossy classical music monthly, BBC Music Magazine.
Michael Bukht, aka Michael Barry 'The Crafty Cook', helped shape the on-air sound and programme schedule for Classic FM
A month before the launch Steve Clarke, writing for The Independent quoted Michael Bukht, the station's programme controller. "We will not provide 'Mozartsak' or wall-to-wall Vivaldi. The music will range from Palestrina to Walton. We're going to be playing the pop music of the past 300 years. You're as likely to hear Benjamin Britten at breakfast time as you are Mozart. There will be music full of emotional and intellectual complexity, but only if it has points of accessibility for people who are not specialists. Classic FM will be top quality, but it will not pretend to be elitist or exclusive."
Over the summer of 1992, ahead of the launch, listeners could hear test transmissions consisting of birdsong recorded in the back garden of the station's chief engineer Quentin Howard. Amazingly it became something of a broadcasting sensation and years later led to Radio Birdsong occupying a vacant slot on the Digital One network. Earlier this year Quentin spoke to Paddy O'Connell about the recording.
Classic FM's launch day was set as Monday 7 September 1992 broadcasting from studios in rented space at Academic House on Oval Road in Camden. The previous day Paul Donovan wrote about "the new chapter in British broadcasting" and how the new arrival was "keen to dispel sneers that it will be wall-to-wall Vivaldi". £12 million had been invested and 11 new transmitters imported from the US to reach 80% of the population. The prospects for the station augured well: "Classic is launching at a time when interest in, if not knowledge of, classical music has reached phenomenal levels. One in every five CDs sold is now classical. Fine music, particularly opera, has become aspirational, like fine wine or foreign travel."
Nick Bailey's radio career started as a newsreader on Radio Caroline in 1966. Subsequently in Australia, Hong Kong and with BFBS and BBC Radio 5 before joining Classic FM. He left the station on 1 August 2017.
At 5.58 am the birdsong faded out and in came David Arnold's nine-note logo main theme. At 6.00 am the first voice on air is actually that of newsreader Sarah Sheppard but the station's first breakfast show presenter, Nick Bailey, cues in the first record, Handel's coronation anthem Zadok the Priest, some six minutes later: "Good morning and welcome to Britain's first national commercial radio station. This is Classic FM. I'm Nick Bailey and this is George Frederick Handel." For the record the first advert is for Barclays Bank voiced by Peter Barkworth and Peter Jones.
Nick Bailey was, until he left last month, the only remaining presenter from the launch line-up. He returns this Thursday to read the news. From later on the first day of broadcasting here's Susannah Simons.
This is how the launch schedule looked:
Weekdays
6 am Nick Bailey
9 am Henry Kelly
12 noon Susannah Simons
1 pm Celebrity Choice (Friday's only)
2pm Lunchtime Concerto
3 pm Petroc Trelawny
6 pm Classic Reports with Margaret Howard
7pm (Mon) Close Encounters of a Musical Kind(Tues) Classic Opera Guide (Wed) Classic Bookshelf (Thurs) Classic Travel Guide (Fri) Classic Verdict
8 pm Classic FM Concert
10 pm Adrian Love
1 am Andre Leon (Mon-Tues) Robert Booth (Wed-Fri)
Saturdays
6 am Sarah Lucas
9 am Classic CD Countdown with Paul Gambaccini
12 noon Petroc Trelawny
3 pm Adrian Love
6 pm Classic America
7 pm Introduction to the Opera
10 pm Classic Quiz
12 midnight Andre Leon
Sundays
6 am Sarah Lucas
9 pm Classic Romance
12 noon CD Requests
2 pm Celebrity Choice
3 pm Robert Booth
7 pm Love Lives of the Great Composers
8 pm Classic FM Concert
10 pm Sunday Night Out
11 pm Contemporary Classics
12 midnight Andre Leon
Classic FM's launch was an unqualified success, despite the odd gaffe (see below). Paul Donovan wrote how "its presentation is characterised by the bounce and zap, and superficiality, of commercial radio stations. It is much less considered and high-minded, and much more informal and chatty, then Radio 3. It is a very different approach indeed, and Britain has never heard anything like it before. In aquatic terms, Classic is like a bath, a soft, warm wallow, while Radio 3 is more of a shower- astringent and stimulating". There were some irritations however; "Bach's double violin concerto followed by a snappy update on M4 contra-flows is exactly what is meant by the words sublime to the ridiculous."
Sunday Times 31 January 1993. Former Radio 3 announcer Tony Scotland was drafted in to Classic FM to help with those tricky bits of classical pronunciation
The station did tend to polarise opinion; it was either a great democratiser of classical music or it made classical music a disposable commodity. The Independent asked some not exactly typical listeners about what they'd heard. James Jolly editor of Gramophone liked the "strange sort of classlessness that's relaxing, there's something very direct about it." Pianist Peter Donohoe welcomed more exposure to classical music but added that "it is not being faithful to that art to let people just hear the nice bits only". Antony Hopkins, conductor and long-time BBC broadcaster decried the "mismash of music" adding that "the general assumption seemed to be that nobody could tolerate listening to anything for longer than five minutes." Composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez thought "It's all very popular classical music; there's nothing wrong with that, but sometime you need meat, not just sugar." Composer Judith Weir started off with an open mind but was disappointed.
For the wider listenership Classic FM hit the ground running and within 3 months was reporting figures of 4.5 million and a 9 to 10% audience share - making it the fourth most popular station after Radios 1, 2 and 4. Today it pulls in about 5.8 million listeners, around a 3.9% market share.
Radio 3's listening figures did take an initial dip but controller Nicholas Kenyon was undismayed. "Classic FM set out to be popular and it is not playing anything that anyone doesn't like. It has to deliver an audience to advertisers, while we are extending choice by the breadth of our repertory." And the money did roll in. In January 1993 Guy Lamming, media analyst, was quoted as saying "it is vital that the first national radio station funded by advertising does succeed. It needs £7m in advertising revenue in its first year and it looks as though it will pass that easily and become a significant profit-generator".
By the time its celebrated its second anniversary Classic FM had moved into profit for the first time, had 4.7m listeners, was extending the brand into Europe with an FM licence in the Netherlands, had a £2.2m educational sponsorship with Nestlé and had sparked a trend for CDs offering "essential" classics.
The story of the launch of Classic FM is told this Tuesday at 8 pm in The Pazza Factor, a music-based play written by Sean Grundy and Cara Jennings starring Jon Culshaw, Duncan Wisbey and Kate O'Sullivan. It is still available to listen again on the Classic FM website.
They are the voice of the station. Seamlessly linking the programmes, providing the programme trails and reading the news bulletins and shipping forecasts. Ever present since the start of Radio 4 in 1967 I'm celebrating the voices -some familiar, some now long-forgotten - of the team of announcers that have graced the airwaves in the intervening fifty years.
Before introducing you to the just shy of 200 men and women who've appeared on Radio 4 - the split, incidentally, is about 63% male, 37% female - time for a little history.
When Radio 4 replaced the Home Service on 30 September 1967 it was pretty much business as usual. "This is Radio 4, the Home Service" would be the opening announcement at the start of the day's broadcasting for many years. When David Dunhill famously closed down the Home Service on the Friday evening - "so goodbye Home Service, two of the best words in the British language" - it was also his voice that woke listeners to the new service the following morning, though sadly no recording exists of that piece of broadcasting history. So a good few of the names on this list would have been heard on the Home Service, and indeed the Light and Third Programme, as announcers were not tied to any particular network. For instance, on that opening morning Bruce Wyndham was reading the news, someone more likely to have been heard over on the Light and then Radio 2 as the regular host of Saturday's Breakfast Special.
Continuity studio desk (Thanks to Steve Bowbrick for the photo)
At the time of the network changeover the announcers on all the national stations reported to the Head of Presentation, David Lloyd-James. His Deputy was the rather better known Andrew Timothy; he'd announced on The Goon Show before Wallace Greenslade took over and was the father of actor Christopher Timothy. These posts ceased to exist from 1972 when the team was carved up between three Presentation Editors: Jimmy Kingsbury for Radios 1 & 2, Cormac Rigby on Radio 3 and Jim Black on Radio 4. (Although Radios 1 & 2 had employed James Fisher as a Presentation Editor from 1969, it was he who took on a young Noel Edmonds to join the promotions team presenting trailers and on-air competitions). The result of all this is that from the early 70s onwards we see an increase in the dedicated team of staff on Radio 4; familiar voices such as Peter Donaldson, Peter Jefferson, Edward Cole, John Marsh, Laurie MacMillan and Pauline Bushnell all joined at that time.
It was Jim Black who introduced Sailing By as the buffer before the Shipping Forecast and engaged Fritz Spiegl, whom he'd worked with at BBC Radio Merseyside, to compose the short-lived Radio 4 jingles and the rather longer-lived Radio 4 Theme.
In the mid-70s the Announcers' Common Room (Room 2091 in the Broadcasting House Extension) was located immediately above the Control Room where the Continuity Suites were located, and one floor below the Newsroom where the bulletins came from in Studios 3A, 3B and 3C. Broadcaster Tony Barnfield, who was working as a Relief Duty Officer at the time, told me that there was some confusion over the announcer's in-trays when both Tom Edwards (over on Radio 2) and weather forecaster Barbara Edwards was temporarily working on Radio 4, and that famously some wag had scrawled 'Master' over Simon Bates's name. Recalling his early days as a BBC announcer, Peter Donaldson, speaking to Simon Elmes in 2007, seemed to suggest that high jinks in and out the studio was not uncommon. "There was ... fun and games and a certain degree of irresponsibility which you probably wouldn't get away with now! Several of us would be in the BBC Club and one of us was supposed to be on duty, but there were coins tossed to see who would go on and read the next summary ... and the one after that and possibly the one after that!"
Ray Moore, also an announcer for a while (and featuring on this list), wrote about the variety of roles that were undertaken. "I took ownership of my pigeon hole in the Broadcasting House common room, my name sandwiched between Roger Moffat and Alexander Moyes, and got down to work. It was a varied life, reading the news and Today in Parliament on Radio 4, occasionally introducing a symphony concert from the old Farringdon hall, and even hosting a talent show on Radio 1 on Sunday afternoons."
In compiling this list, just to complicate matters, alongside the staff announcers there were a host of people on secondment, freelancers or folk just getting a try-out. Hopefully I've captured most of their names. In more recent years the situation has become a little more fluid again, announcers just as likely to be heard reading the news over on Radio 3 or the World Service and, of course, providing the pre-recorded links on Radio 4 Extra.
Chris Aldridge (Photo by Steve Bowbrick)
So how do you become an announcer and what do they actually do. To kick things off here's what Radio 4's Senior Announcer Chris Aldridge had to tell me:
In my view the role of the Radio 4 announcer is that of a trusted guide and companion to the listener; he or she is there to lead the listener through our schedule and experience the programmes with them. When seeking new announcers I look for several qualities in a person:
a love of Radio 4 and a passion to share it with others
a clear broadcasting voice and demonstrable experience at local or national level
the ability to write good promotional links, often under time pressure
considerable technical experience.
Since I joined the Radio 4 team in the mid-1990s there have been significant changes to the job brought on by the emergence of digital technology, the expansion of the Radio 4 schedule and the need for the BBC to operate as efficiently as possible. The biggest change came in 2006 when the Radio 4 Continuity studio became self-operational, and the announcers took over all technical responsibilities.
Another significant event came in 2012 when the BBC newsroom in London moved from TV Centre in Wood Lane to New Broadcasting House in Portland Place; this meant that the Continuity and news studios were now in the same building and allowed us to make more effective use of announcers on duty. If you’re a keen listener you’ll spot that – at certain times of the day – the newsreader pops up in Continuity to read some links as well as the news summary; this means their Continuity colleague is most likely heading for the staff restaurant or taking the air in W1A!
Both the above changes have meant that we’ve been able reduce our costs whilst maintaining live Continuity throughout the Radio 4 schedule. Whilst the work involves shifts starting as early as 0430 or finishing as late as 0100 and, of course, includes weekends, it still feels a great privilege to be at the helm of the best speech station in the world.
Chris's mention of the move from TV Centre back to the newly expanded Broadcasting House is interesting as it marks one of the changes in recent years in the way the presentation team covers the day on Radio 4. It was in 1998 under John Birt's plans for bi-media working that radio's news and current affairs teams found themselves camped out in TV Centre. Consequently all the Radio 4 bulletins were read from TVC with the sole exception of the 12 noon news on long wave which was read at Broadcasting House. As the announcer went on to read the 12.01 Shipping Forecast he/she would undertake the network split from a self-op studio.
4th floor for Radio 4 Presentation at Broadcasting House
The controversial axing of the UK Theme in April 2006 and the introduction of News Briefing dispensed with the need for a separate announcer to open up the station. Instead whoever was on the morning newsreading shift faded out the World Service, handed over to a Met Office forecaster for the Shipping Forecast, read the News Briefing and then covered the Today news bulletins. A separate continuity shift didn't start until 9 am.
Announcers like Charlotte Green missed the old station start-up: "For me there was a sense of excitement, if that doesn't sound too stupid. You were right there at the beginning with these very tried-and-trusted formulas, the Shipping Forecast and the Radio 4 theme tune. I really remember the sense of excitement - the day starting afresh, the Today programme was coming up..."
At the opposite end of the day Diana Speed, writing in 2009 explained how the evening shifts work: "Two of us work the late shift up until midnight. During that time we provide cover and most importantly support for each other, because now that we are self operating we put the programmes to air on our own. If for any reason something were to go wrong, one of us would be telling you - whilst the other announcer would be fielding phone calls or sourcing a different piece of audio to play - should a programme have to be abandoned for technical reasons. By midnight though, we call time on one announcer, and the other is left to manage the network alone until one o'clock".
When the newsroom moved back to central London in 2012 the presentation team was slimmed down and two of the network's best-known voices, Harriet Cass and Charlotte Green, took voluntary redundancy. Around the same time two other long-serving announcers, Peter Donaldson and Alice Arnold, left the station.
Here are three audio perspectives on the art of announcing, accurately reading a bulletin and not crashing the pips. First, from 21 June 1992, comes this report from The Radio Programme taking you through a typical day with Jenny Lane, Brian Perkins, Peter Donaldson and Mairead Devlin.
Feedback's Roger Bolton went behind the scenes of Radio 4 continuity and spoke to Operations Assistant Caroline Adams (now Scheduling Co-ordinator, Transmission and Delivery) and announcer Corrie Corfield in this edition from 15 June 2012.
The perils of the technology failing and getting the pronunciation right are dealt with by Zeb Soanes in another edition of Feedback from 7 February 2014.
Technical Information
This list couldn't have been compiled without the help of David Mitchell. David first contacted me back in 2012 telling me that he'd started noting the names of Home Service newsreaders in 1964. Over the last couple of years we've gradually built up a picture of who's appeared on-air over the Radio 4's five decades. Armed with David's information plus my own notes we've come up with 199 names. The only possible gap in our combined knowledge is the early 1980s (roughly mid-1981 to April 1985). So if we've missed you out I apologise. If you want to be added, or you know of a missing name, please email me.
I've only included announcers working 'normal' shifts. So, for example, I don't list the one-off re-appearance of John Snagge and Frank Phillips on Christmas Eve 1972 as part of the BBC's 50th, nor the guest announcers as part of recent Comic and Sports Relief days. Nor indeed John Finnemore who invaded the continuity studio as the Lord of Misrule earlier this year, although he does pop up in a couple of the audio extracts alongside the regular team. Also excluded are the PM announcer competition winners from this summer.
Most of the audio comes from my own off-air recordings and downloads. If you love listening to the Shipping Forecast then these audio clips should more than satisfy your needs. Where I've been unable to trace any recordings from Radio 4 I've used that person's appearances on other stations, mainly Radio 2, Radio 3 and the World Service. Again if you have audio please contact me.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to David Mitchell for all his patient replies to my emails about who was on when and attempting to identify mystery voices I've found on the end of tapes.
I am also extremely grateful to Radio 4's Senior Announcer, Chris Aldridge, for taking the time to answer my queries and for providing an insight as to how he and his team keep the station on the air.
A number of current and former announcers kindly got back to me. Thank you to Sean Maffett, Sarah MacDonald, Jamie Owen, Christopher Slade, Geoff Oxley, Marshall Corwin, Jonathan Staples, Jonny Gould, Simon Vance, Annie McKie, Alice Arnold, Kathy Clugston, Patrick Muirhead, Steve Urquhart, Andrew Peach, Carolyn Brown, Andrew Crawford, Jonathan Lampon, Charles Carroll and Corrie Corfield. The List A to I Here's the first part of the list covering surnames starting A through to I. The second part for letters J to Y will go live tomorrow.
Chris Aldridge Now the senior announcer on Radio 4 Chris joined the BBC in 1985 as a studio manager. From 1990 he was an announcer/newsreader on Radio 5 before joining Radio 4 in 1995.
Viji Alles Freelance writer and broadcaster. Editor-in-chief of UKAsian.com. Previously worked for MBC Networks in Sri Lanka, Metro FM in South Africa, Arabian Media Group in Dubai, NPR in the States and Sunshine Radio. Radio 4 announcer from 2015.
Ruth Anders Worked with ENO and RSC before moving to LWT in 1983 as newsreader/announcer until 1998. Also at Radio 4 as announcer 1988-90. Worked for the Bell Shakespeare Co in Australia 2001-12. Now Shows Development Executive for the RHS.
David Anderson Newsreader and continuity announcer from November 1991 to July 1998. Later becoming Radio 4's Presentation Editor.
Alice Arnold Training as a actress Alice joined the BBC Drama rep in 1988 and appeared in numerous productions on Radio 3 and Radio 4, including the part of Mary in the soap Citizens. Joined the continuity team on a freelance basis in 1994 initially under the name Katie Arnold as she was still appearing in dramas. Read the overnight news on Radio 2. Joined the staff in 2006 as newsreader and announcer. Appeared alongside Jon Holmes in the comdey series Listen Against. Left the BBC in 2012 and now writes for national newspapers appears on Mellow Magic.
Hylda Bamber Started broadcasting career with BFBS and then at BBC Radio Brighton from launch. Joined Radio 4 in September 1972 before moving to IRN as a newsreader.
Peter Barker Trained at RADA and worked for several years as an actor. Joined the BBC in 1962 as announcer across all the radio services. Presenter on Morning Melody on Radio 4 in the late 60s. Moved to the Radio 3 team in February 1972 later presenter of Concert Hall. Reader on Quote…Unquote (Series 18). Retired in 1992.
Dilly Barlow Initially with the BBC as a Studio Manager before joining Radio 4 Presentation as an announcer (later also newsreading) in March 1979. Turning freelance and working across the networks on Today, The Food Programme, Woman's Hour and Walter's Weekly. In the 90s produced a range of radio shows such as Loose Ends, Home Truths and The Food Programme. Presenter of World Service's Write On. Also worked on TV and does voiceover work and documentary narration (e.g. Horizon).
Simon Bates Joined Radio 4 in 1971 as a newsreader before moving across to Radio 2 in 1972 as announcer/newsreader and later presenter of The Early Show. Moved over to Radio 1 from 1976 until 1993. Then at Atlantic 252, Talk Radio, Liberty, Classic FM, LBC, Smooth and Radio Devon.
Bill Bingham Was at BBC Birmingham, Radio City, Radio Trent and BBC Nottingham before joining Radio 1 as newsreader and then at IRN/LBC. Freelance at Radio 4 in the early 1990s. Also on Jazz FM. BFBS, Saga, Liver FM, Smooth Radio and Sky News radio bulletins. Latterly on Monocle 24.
Carol Bolt Newsreader and announcer on Radio 4 (from April 1986 to January 1987) and then World Service. Worked on Channel 4 1988-95 and subsquently on UKTV, Disney Channel and Discovery as announcer and promos writer.
Robert Booth Newsreader and announcer 1983-86. Presenter of Looking Forward to the Past, Could Do Better and Just Three Wishes on Radio 4. Classic FM presenter mid-90s. Now a food writer and author.
Julia Booth Brief spell on Radio 4 as an announcer July to December 1980. Later on BBC East and BBC local radio in London, Essex, Cambridge, Leeds and York. Left the BBC in 2014.
Robin Boyle Though mainly associated with Radio 2, Robin did occasional shifts on Radio 4 in the early days including a number of overnight newsreading shifts. His broadcasting career started in 1945 on BFN in Hamburg as announcer then Head of Presentation. Joined BBC in 1947 occasionally presenting Family Favourites from Hamburg than announcer on all networks but mainly on the Light. Best known for presenting Friday Night is Music Night, but also worked on Today (where he was one of the first presenters), Sunday Special, Hancock’s Half Hour, The Navy Lark, Those Were the Day, The Musical World of…, Night Ride, Marching and Waltzing, Band Parade,and Glamorous Nights. Retired in 1987 but continued presenting as freelance. Died in 2003.
Alison Braine On Radio 4 in 1996.
Jon Briggs Reporter on Radio 4’s The Chip Shop. Host of Morning Edition on BBC Radio 5 (1990-92). Announcer on Radio 4 1992-93, Radio 2 1992-97 and read the news overnight on Radio 1 1993-95. Later on LBC and Radio 5 Live. Announcer on Channel 4, Sky Movies. Until Dec 2012 on BBC Radio Oxford. His voice was also heard on BBC TV’s The Weakest Link (2000-12) and on Apple’s Siri app.
Jane Brinsmead Actress who did some announcing shifts in 1981.
TimBrinton Broadcaster turned politician had started his radio career as a BBC announcer in 1951. In 1955 he worked for Radio Hong Kong for a couple of years before becoming an ITN newscaster. A regular presenter on the Light Programme (1959-1967) where he was one of the regular hosts on Roundabout. He was still doing occasional announcing shifts on Radio 4 until September 1971. In 1974 he became a county councillor and an MP from 1979 to 1987. Died in 2009.
David Broomfield An announcer and newsreader on the Home Service and then Radio 4. Last newsreading shift in July 1970, thereafter only continuity duty until March 1972. Joined BBC Radio Carlisle (later Radio Cumbria).
Carolyn Brown Began as a journalist in local radio (Radio City) and regional TV. A "premature midlife crisis" saw Carolyn travelling round India before coming back to the UK and working as a news editor in Bristol. Joined Radio 4 in 1991, retiring in 2015. Has since contributed a number of items to From Our Own Correspondent and is a freelance features writer.
David Brown On Radio 4 December 1985 to March 1986
Louise Bruce Started as a studio manager. Announcer and newsreader on Radio 4 (January 1992 to November 1995 and again briefly in 1996) and newsreader on Radio 2 where she presented a handful of editions of Night Ride in 1991.
Martin Buchanan Newsreader and announcer on Radio 4 (briefly at the end of 1993) and on the World Service 1993-97. Briefly freelanced on Radio 4 in the summer of 2012. Extensive media career includes Music Box, Radio Luxembourg, Capital Radio, Channel 4, Discovery, Magic 105.4, GMTV and Radio Kent. Now runs production company PIBE Ltd. In 2016 he appeared on Thames Radio.
Angela Buckland Announcer, mainly on the Home Service, where she presented Home to Music, but also on Light and Third. On Radio 4, until early 1968, and also the announcer on Petticoat Line. Worked for BBC TV production
Piers Burton-Page Joined the BBC in 1971 as a studio manager before becoming announcer on Radio 4 (1975-77) and then Radio 3 in 1977. Music Organiser for the World Service until 1985 when he was back at Radio as Presentation Editor. Became one of the presenter-producers from the early 1990s. First presenter of On Air. Continued as a producer for Radio 3 from 1998 to 2000 and appeared on the station occasionally thereafter.
Pauline Bushnell Joined the BBC in 1973 writing trails for Radio 4. A year later became an announcer. Presenter of In Britain Now. Left the station in August 1988. In 1990s a presenter on Central News.
GigiCallander Emma Callander, nick-named Gigi, joined the BBC as a studio manager in 1982 before working on Radio 4 as an announcer and the World Service as a producer. Left the BBC in 1991 and formed Callander Communications. Now, as Gigi Salomon pursues a career as a sculpter.
Gavin Campbell Former actor (including The New Avengers, Softly Softly and a number of radio productions) before a short spell as a Radio 4 announcer between December 1978 and February 1979. Moved over to Radio 2 as newsreader and announcer until 1982. Then on BBC1's That’s Life! from 1982 to 1994. Later worked on LBC and Radio 5.
Charles Carroll Started on hospital radio before moving into BBC local radio and then BFBS. Also reads the news on BBC World Service and worked on Radio 2 1997-2012. Briefly on Radio 4 in October/November 2004 and has appeared regularly as an announcer since December 2005.
Avril Carson For many years an announcer on ATV and then Central TV. Was also head of ATV in-house training. Some announcing shifts on Radio 4 in 1980 and a short spell reading the news on Radio 2 (Nov 1981-Jan 1982)
JillyCarter Briefly on Radio 4 in October and November 1980 and again in 1991/2. A newsreader on TSW, BBC Breakfast Time, ITN and Channel 4 Daily. Now runs Carter Communications Ltd
Andy Cartledge Joined the BBC as a studio manager in the early 1960s. Was a continuity announcer on both Radio 3 and Radio 4 from October 1968 to April 1969 before moving over to TV Centre and becoming a familiar voice on BBC1 and BBC2 for the next 32 years. Also on BBC World Service TV in 1992. Briefly back on the radio in 1977 when he was given a try-out on both Europe 77 and European Pop Jury following the departure of regular host David Gell. He retired from the BBC in 2001 and died of a heart attack in December 2008 aged 67.
Harriet Cass Joined the BBC in 1972 as a secretary before becoming a studio manager. Her first broadcast was in 1974, reading letters on You and Yours before joining the Radio 4 presentation team. In the 80s Harriet left the network to join the radio newsroom and to work in various capacities in TV news and at the BBC’s Westminster offices. She returned to Radio 4, her “spiritual home” in 1996. Took voluntary redundancy in 2013.
Jean Challis Started on BFBS in Cyprus in June 1962 as announcer and occasional presenter of Two-Way Family Favourites. Joined Radio 4 in June 1973 and the following year moved to the Radios 1 & 2 announcing team. Final presenter of Family Favourites 1975 to 1980, also on Music Through Midnight, Music to Midnight, The Late Show, Radio Orchestra shows, String Sound, You and the Night and the Music and Nightride. Also an actress appearing in minor roles often in sitcoms
Kathy Clugston Began her broadcasting career with the BBC in Northern Ireland as an announcer and transmission director 1996-2003. Also presented on former channel BBC Choice. Moved to Amsterdam as reporter/presenter on Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Joined Radio 4 in 2006 as an announcer. Was the 'Posh Radio 4 Lady' reading letters on Scott Mills Radio 1 show. Co-wrote the musical But First This, a musical homage to Radio 4. Along with Corrie Corfield she was the instigator of The Slanket of Con. Also works regularly on Radio 3, 4 Extra and the World Service.
Edward Cole Broadcasting career started in 1965 on pirate radio station Radio 390. TV announcer on HTV and BBC South. Joined Radio 4 in January 1974. Also presented the music programme The Unforgettables and devised the music quiz Counterpoint. Left the BBC in April 1991. Died in 2003.
Charles Colville Now best known as a cricket commentator for Sky he joined Radio 4 as newsreader and announcer in April 1978 but by 1985 was a sports reporter for BBC radio. Later on Radio 2's Sport on 2 and Sunday Sport on 2 andSunday Sport on Radio 5. Not to be confused with the TV director/producer of the same name.
Ros Copland Radio 4 announcer from December 1990 until September 1992. Now, under the name Ros Wingerter, an announcer on WWNO New Orleans Public Radio.
(Original artist unknown)
Corrie Corfield Joined the BBC as a studio manager at BBC World Service. In 1987 on the trilingual station BBC 648 and then as newsreader on the World Service. Joined Radio 4 in 1988. Between 1991 and 1995 in South Africa on Radio 702. Rejoined Radio 4 in 1995.
Marshall Corwin Television producer and director was a Radio 4 announcer from August 1985 to March 1986.
Peter Crabtree A familiar voice on BBC Radio Sheffield for over 20 years he briefly appeared as a newsreader on Radio 2 and Radio 4 between February and April 1973.
Andrew Crawford Studio Manager on BBC World Service 1985-88 with periods as an announcer at the launch of BBC 648 and on the World Service. Radio 4 announcer and newsreader 1988-1999. Announced the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. Moved onto BBC projects in 1999 (some standby announcing shifts in 2004) and then into management. Currently Head of Production Delivery, BBC News. Still heard doing the announcements and credits on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Vivien Creegor Former BBC secretary and Production Assistant before joining Radio 4. Later newsreader on BBC TV then with Sky News (1988-2006).
John Crosse Best known as Yorkshire Television announcer from 1973 to 1998. First broadcast on the pirate station Radio London, then moved into selling airtime at RadioVision followed by work as presenter and producer at BFBS Cyprus. After working on Radio 4 in the early 70s he moved to Southern TV and then YTV.
Tom Crowe Best known as a Radio 3 announcer Tom appeared on Radio 4 in the early days of the station as an announcer and newsreader until 1971. First an announcer on the Third Programme in 1952. Left the BBC in 1960 but returned in 1967. Retired from the BBC in 1982. Died in 2011.
Frank Crozier Worked in advertising before joining the BBC in Nairobi in the mid-60s. Then wrote for and sub-edited the Radio Times. Short spell as Radio 4 announcer in 1975 & 1976 before moving within the Corporation to Appointments and finally International Relations. Died in 2002 aged 78.
Jon Curle Another familiar voice over on Radio 3 Jon also appeared regularly on Radio 4 in the early days of the station. A former actor he joined the BBC as an announcer in 1959 working across all networks. Presented music shows on the Light Programme and was the regular announcer on later series of The Men from the Ministry. Presented Night Ride on Radio 2. Worked exclusively on Radio 3 from 1972 until early 1990s. Died in 2012.
Angela Davis On Radio 4 in 1994
Nicola Davies A broadcast journalist for 15 years with occasional shifts on Radio 4 in 1987. Now runs a consultancy in Organisational Development and is a Programme Director at the London Business School.
Michael De Morgan Former actor. Worked on BBC Radio 1959-73 mainly Home Service/Radio 4. Regular host of the Sports Service in 60s. Read the news on Town and Around on BBC1 in the South East and presented BBC2 tv News Review. Moved to South Africa in 1974 as newsreader on SABC TV1. In 1987 joined the Department of Foreign Affairs until 1992 when he worked for Bop TV. Retired in 1995 moving to Cape Town. Died in 1999.
ElizabethDe'Ath BBC World Service newsreader in the 1990s. Appeared on Radio 4 April to July 1995.
Abigail Dennis On Radio 4 in 1995
Susan Denny Westward TV announcer. Presented Play School in 1971. Newsreader on LBC. Joined Radio 4 1975 as newsreader until March 1981 then moving into production on the network.
Mairead Devlin On Radio 4 since 1988 as reporter and presenter. Two stints as an announcer: from April 1992 to 1997 and again from 2012 to the present. Runs a media production company.
Zoe Diamond Freelance announcer was on Radio 1 Newsbeat and regularaly heard on BBC World Service. Radio 4 announcer in 2012 & 2013.
Peter Donaldson For many years one of the best known and longest-serving members of Radio 4's presentation team. After an early career as an actor he applied for a job as an announcer with the BFBS. Joined Radio 2 on 6 April 1970 and was presenter of Night Ride, Breakfast Special and The Early Show. On Radio 4 from 1973 apart from a short break when he joined Radio Hallam for its launch. Chief Announcer 1988-2003. Retired from the staff in 2005 but continued as a freelance until December 2012. Died in 2015.
Pat Doody Long time TV announcer at Border but also Tyne-Tees and LWT. Broadcasting career started at BFBS in Cyprus before joining BBC radio in 1967 as announcer and newsreader. Also presented Night Ride on Radio 1 & Radio 2, plus Strings by Starlightand Sunday Morning with Pat Doody on Radio 2. Left in 1971. Some occasional announcing shifts on Radio 4. Died in 1990.
Colin Doran Radio announcer on Home, Light & Third from 1947. Born in India then in the UK won scholarships to Eton and Oxford, specialising in French and German. War service in counter-espionage in France and then Burma. Worked for the Foreign Office until one day he heard Alvar Lidell reading the news and decided he'd like to have a go. "So I wrote to John Snagge and got an audition." Presenter of Midday Miscellany and The Golden Treasury of Music and Song on Home Service, Parents and Children on Network Three, Then and Now and Melody Hour on Light Programme. Later newsreader and announcer on Radio 4. Also presented Music to Remember, All Kinds of Music and In Britain Now. Retired in 1982. BBC TV newsreader 1954-56
Michael Dorman Announcer March to June 1968. No other information.
David Dunhill Joined the BBC after working for the British Forces Network in Cairo. Initially on Light Programme then mainly Home and Third. Had a spell working in the BBC's personnel department. Duty announcer who closed down the Home Service in Sept 1967 and opened up Radio 4 the following morning. Later as a freelance he would audition and train radio presenters and reporters. Died in 2005.
John Dunn BBC career started as a studio manager in the late 1950s for the General Overseas Service. Moved into announcing across all networks by the early 60s and presented many music shows mainly on the Light Programme. A regular presenter of Breakfast Special 1966-72 but still reading the news and working continuity shifts. He made occasional appearances on Radio 4 in 1968 and 1969. Presented weekly children's programme 4th Dimension on Radio 4 (1972-75). Daily afternoon show on Radio 2 (1972-74) then long-running teatime show (1976-98). Presenter of Friday Night is Music Night (1999-2003). Died in 2004.
Barbara Edwards During the 1970s Barbara was a familiar face on BBC TV as a weather forecaster but she appeared on Radio 4 as an announcer for a few months from September 1972. She'd joined the Met Office in 1957. From 1970 to 1979 she worked at the Londion Weather Centre providing forecasts for both TV and radio. Back at the Met Office in Bracknell from 1978 until retiring in 1980.
Brian Empringham Joined the BBC in the late 60s as a studio manager. Announcer & newsreader on Radios 1, 2 & 4 from Feb 1971. Presented All Kinds of Music on Radio 4 in 1973. Left BBC in Feb 1974 to work at the Atlantic Relay Station on Ascension Island. Returned to the BBC World Service in 1978 where he later read the news on the BBC World Service Television News (later BBC World). Made further appearances on Radio 4 between Jan and July 1990. Retired to North Devon in Sept 1998 but still undertook newsreader training until at least 2004.
MatthewExell Worked for the BBC 1997-2012 mainly on the World Service first as a studio manager then as a Broadcast Journalist. Announcer on Radio 4 2007-10. From 2016 back at the BBC as a newsreader on Radio 5 live.
RobFinnegan On Radio 4 in 1995
Arlene Fleming Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and a qualified voice coach. Continuity announcer on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Scotland TV, Channel 4, Radio 4 then BBC TV. After a career break returned to Radio 4 but left the station in 2015.
Ronald Fletcher Became something of a radio personality following his appearances on Breakfast with Braden and Bedtime with Braden. He'd joined the BBC in the 1940s as an announcer and newsreader. Went freelance in the late 60s but continued to appear on Radio 4 until the end of 1970. On BBC TV in Braden's Week and from 1976 to 1994 was the reader on Quote...Unquote. Died in 1996.
Cathy Flower No information other than some continuity shifts around 1999.
Stuart Forsyth Started in radio with British Forces Network before joining the BBC as a studio manager in 1954. Later an announcer and producer. Announcer on Radio 4 and also presented All Kinds of Music. Left the BBC in 1975 to work in PR but returned to work at Bush House as a news sub-editor plus some freelance music presenting. Retired in 1988. Died in 2008.
Eugene Fraser Born in Fiji and educated in New Zealand where he worked on radio and television. He came to Britain in 1967 and joined the BBC as announcer and newsreader. Initially on Radios 1 and 2 he presented such shows as Night Ride, Friday Night is Music Nightand Brass and Strings. In 1975 he moved to Radio Victory in Portsmouth. By August 1977 he was back at the BBC, this time as announcer on Radio 4. From late 1989 to early 1992 he was back in New Zealand producing TV programmes for a Polynesian audience. Rejoined Radio 4 in April 1992 and left in 1993.
Fennella Fudge Joined the BBC as a trainee secretary and then various TV production posts. Freelance as announcer on Radio 4 1990-96 (as Fenella Haddingham) before moving over to Radio 2 as a newsreader 1996-2012. Voiceover actor and trainer. More recently on LBC and Head of News at Share Radio.
Andrew Gemmill Mainly appearing on the Third Programme then Radio 3 Andrew also announced on Radio 4. In the 1960s presented on all networks: the mid-week edition of Family Favourites, Today, Sports Service and On Stage..
Jonathan Gould Better known as Jonny Gould he appeared briefly in November 1993 doing some holiday cover. He'd previously worked on the BBC World Service and IRN on their sports coverage. Subsequently worked on TV for Channel 5, ITV, Al Jazeera and regularly reviews the papers on Sky News. Radio work includes Talksport and Smooth Radio and he's currently on Talk Radio.
But First This ran at The Watermill Theatre, Newbury in 2014
Martin Granger Joined the BBC's Overseas Service in 1959 where he worked as studio manager, presenter, announcer and producer of English by Radio. On Radio 4 from July to the end of 1975.
Charlotte Green Joined the BBC as studio manager News & Current Affairs (Radio) in 1979. Moved to Radio presentation in March 1985. Presented Morning Has Broken and a regular reader on The News Quiz. Left Radio 4 in January 2013. Presents a programme on Classic FM and, from September 2013, reads the classified football results on Radio 5 Live.
Jane Hall On Radio 4 in January 1987
Victor Hallam BBC staff announcer from the late 1950s across all networks who later worked exclusively on Radio 3.
Paul Harris On Radio 4 1972-75. Later a TV announcer for BBC South.
Peter Harris On Radio 4 between September 1987 and July 1988.
Barri Haynes Worked on Radio 4 from August 1971 to January 1972 before joining Radio 2 as newsreader and announcer. Was the first presenter of The Early Show and also presented Night Ride on Radio 2. Reporter on ATV Today in late 60s. Continuity announcer at LWT. Commentator on Come Dancing 1972-8. Also on BBC Radio Wales.
John Hedges Started his broadcasting career as a BBC studio manager before working for the BFBS in Cyprus, Tobruk & Berlin. Occasionally co-presented Family Favourites 1967-72. Returining to the UK he joined Radio 4 as a staff announcer before going freelance. Presented In Britain Now and Up to the Hour, he was on the first ever edition in May 1977. He narrated The World About Us on BBC2 and many of the Survival documentaries for Anglia TV. Presented In the News for BBC Schools 1984-5. He continued to provide voice overs and narrations until his death in 2012.
Anna Hill Journalist on BBC local radio in Solent, Sussex, Kent, Oxford and Surrey. Radio 4 announcer 1990-95. Presenter on Farming Today since 1995
Emma Hill Presenter/reporter on BBC East Midlands Today who did a couple of Sunday newsreading shifts on Radio 4 in Sept/Oct 1998.
David Hitchinson Directed many BBC Radio 4 dramas including Citizens. Editor of World Service drama Westway. Newsreader and announcer on Radio 4 1983-85.
Robin Holmes Worked for the BBC from the late 1940s as announcer. Regular reader on John Arlott's Book of Verse. Presenter of The World of Books on Network Three and Home Service 1957-65, Can I Help You? on Home Service/Radio 4 1963-70 and Playbill and Rural Rhymes (1977-84) on Radio 3. A newsreader on Radio 4 until 1972 and then on Radio 3 until 1976.
Brian Hudson New Zealand actor and broadcaster who worked on television and Radio New Zealand's Morning Reports. Moved to London in 1966 and joined the BBC as a newsreader on the Home Service/Radio 4 . Also occasionally on the Light Programme where he presented Sound of Strings in 1967 and some shifts on Radio 1 and 2. On returning to his home country he continued to broadcast on Radio New Zealand. Died in 2010 aged 72.
Roger Hudson Broadcasting career started in New Zealand. Returned to UK in the early 70s working freelance for Radio 4, World Service and COI. Joined BFBS radio where he eventually became station manager in Germany. Retired in late 1990s initially to Spain, where he helped set up Exite Fm before moving to France. Died in 2009.
Patricia Hughes Joined the BBC as a secretary in 1944 before becoming an announcer on the General Overseas Service in 1946. Later on the Home Service, Light Programme and Third Programme. Left the BBC in 1962 to look after her family, returning in 1969 initially freelance and then back on the staff in 1970. Allocated to the Radio 3 team where she stayed until retiring in 1983. One of the readers on Quote...Unquote from 1994. Died in 2013
Alasdair Hutton Brief appearance on the network in 1968. He'd originally started his broadcasting career on 4BH in Brisbane, Australia. He was a journalist in Melbourne before returing to his native Scotland first as a journalist then as announcer first in Scotland then Northern Ireland as a TV announcer. Newsreader and announcer on Radio 4 (February & March 1968) and TV continuity announcer for BBC Scotland. Was a producer at BBC Radio Shetland in 1978 . Moved into politics as MEP, local councillor and Convenor. Also an author and the presenter of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo since 1992.
Philip Hyman Radio 4 announcer July - December 1986 and also producer/presenter for World Service English teaching programmes. More recently in Radio 3's Presentation team as a scheduler.
Morag Irvine Joined BBC Radio Scotland in 1987 as a part-time researcher in current affairs. Worked as a freelance announcer before joining Radio 4 in January 1990 on a one year attachment. TV announcer on BBC Scotland
BBC Radio 4 offers its listeners, in the words of its one-time controller Tony Whitby, "the tide of the familiar bringing in the unfamiliar." Guiding listeners through that tide are the station's announcers who smooth over "any awkward clashes between new programmes and old, between the traditional and the experimental, between the serious and the frivolous, the uplifting and the downbeat, between the highbrow and the lowbrow". (David Hendy in Life on Air).
This is the second of two posts listing the announcers that have worked on Radio 4 during its 50-year history. In this post I present surnames J to Y. The first post looked at A to I.
Again I express my thanks to David Mitchell who provided the bulk of these names and to those announcers both past and present who responded to my email requests.
Both these posts are dedicated to the memories of Peter Donaldson, Rory Morrison and Howard Philpott.
Peter Donaldson (aka Lord Donaldson of the Rolls) sports the Slanket of Con. The slanket was a gift to
Kathy Clugston following complaints about a chilly draught in the continuity studio.
Announcers, Radio 4 presenters and anyone passing through the studios were photographed in the slanket.
It was raffled off for Comic Relief in 2012 and found a good home in Belfast.
(Photo courtesy of Corrie Corfield.)
Peter Jefferson
Career started with the BBC World Service, initially as a clerk in the Tape Library, then studio manager and announcer. On Radio 2 1970-72 and presented Night Ride. A Radio 4 announcer between 1974 and 2009, retiring in 2001 but continuing as a freelance after that.
Astley Jones
Originally on Radio 4 from 1972 when he was known as Denis Jones. Subsequently he also appeared on BBC Radio London, Radios 1, 2 & 3, the BBC World Service and BFBS. Appeared regularly on Radio 4 until August 1994 but was still doing occasional shifts until 2006.
Geriant Jones
BBC Wales announcer 1970s-1990s. Also did snooker commentary and read classified football results on Wales on Saturday. Occasional shifts on Radio 4 in 1995 and 1996.
John Jones
Brief appearance in September 1986.
Matt Jones
On Radio 4 between December 2001 and May 2002.
Jimmy Kingsbury
Announcer on BBC Radio from the 1950s whose broadcasting career had started on the British Forces Network in Hamburg. Long-running presenter of Friday Night is Music Night in the 1960s. Also on Tonight at Six, Brass and Strings and Night Ride. Occasional newsreading duties in the early days of Radio 4. Became Presentation Editor for Radio 1 and 2 in 1972. Only occasionally on air in the late 70s working final shifts in January 1980. Retired to Cornwall where he died in the 1990s.
Sean Kelly
Although mainly associated with the Light Programme/Radio 2, Sean was reading the news on Radio 4 as late as April 1973, and worked only on Radio 4 between April and September 1972. Joined the BBC in 1964 as newsreader/announcer and presented Morning Music, Sounds of the Night, Breakfast Special, The Late Live Show, Starlight Serenade, The Sound of Strings, It’s One O’Clock, Music All the Way, Night Ride and Star Sound.
Former actor in films and the occasional tv series between 1957 and 1964 (633 Squadron amongst his credits). Later joined Capital Radio as one of the hosts of Night Flight.
Zeba Khan
Broadcaster and producer on Radio 2 and Radio 4 in mid-90s with continuity shifts around 1996-98. SubsEquently worked for the FA Premier League and the House of Commons as a Parliamentary Assistant. Now a freelance writer.
Jonathan Lampon
Radio 4 announcer for six months from September 2001. Later presenter/producer on BBC London. Currently on BBC Radio Leicester.
Jenny Lane
Joined the BBC as a studio manager in 1984, became trainee announcer in 1986 and permanent announcer in 1988 until 1997.
Peter Latham
Born in Lancashire but educated in New Zealand where he worked as announcer on NZBC 1953-1963. Joined the BBC Light Programme in 1964. Presented Morning Music, Breakfast Special and Melody Hour. Continued on Radio 2 1967 until 1974 hosting Breakfast Special, Night Ride, Late Night Extra, Melody Fair and Star Sound. Occasional shifts on Radio 4 including overnight newsreading. Returned to New Zealand in the mid-70s where he became a priest.
Pennie Latin
Radio producer mainly on BBC Scotland including The Kitchen Cafe. Radio 4 announcer for 5 years.
Douglas Leach
On Radio 4 from June 1968 to November 1969, though mainly on Radio 3 in 1969.
Jim Lee
Got into broadcasting at hospital radio in Coventrty before joining Mercia Sound. Joined the BBC in 1989 at CWR later working at Pebble Mill. Moved to Radio 4 in May 1997. Also on Radio 4 Extra and the World Service.
Peter Lee
On Radio 4 between May 1973 and June 1974.
Paul Leighton
Started as trainee reporter on Birmingham Post. First broadcast as newsreader on the university programme Campus on BBC Radio Nottingham in 1971. Radio Derby’s Political Affairs Producer. Announcer on Radio 4 1979-81 and presented Morning Has Broken before joining Radio 2 1981-2000. Now Chairman of Broadcasting Division of the Chartered Institute of Journalists
James Leighton-Gray
Appeared on Radio 4 from February to July 1987.
Jackie Leonard
Some newsreading shifts on Radio 4 in July 1997. I have presumed that this is the same Jackie Leonard that presents The Newsroom on the BBC World Service.
Alvar Lidell
Made some of the most historic radio announcements ever including abdication of Edwatd VIII and outbreak of Second World War. Joined the BBC in 1932 and became Deputy Chief Announcer in 1937. One of the main announcers when the Third Programme started in 1946. Continued to appear on the radio until his retirement in 1969. Died in 1981. Listen to Alvar on Desert Island Discshere.
John Livesey
Long-time Channel 4 announcer he had been a member of the BBC radio Drama Repertory Company. On Radio 4 in the late 80s. Now an author.
Fiona MacDonald
Presenter and newsreader on BBC World Service since 1987. On Radio 4 in 1994.
Sarah MacDonald
BBC Scotland announcer. Radio 4 announcer March to August 2002 fulfilling a "lifelong wish to read the shipping forecast". Now a professional photographer.
Deborah MacKenzie
Presenter on the BBC News Channel and BBC World until 2013. Previously a Studio Manager and then newsreader and presenter on BBC World Service and on Radio 4 (November 1985 to January 1986). Now freelance presenter and trainer.
Laurie MacMillan
Joined the BBC in 1968 as a Trainee Programme Operations Assistant. Studio Manager from October 1973 and then announcer on Radio 4 from June 1975 to March 2001. Died in October 2001.
Roseanne Macmillan
On Radio 4 January to July 1987. BBC TV announcer 1987-93 & 1996.Recently Director of Media at KiSH. Married to weatherman Rob McElwee
Steve Madden
On the BBC World Service and Radio 4 1982-83 before joining Radio 2 in 1983 (though he was still doing an occasional shift on Radio 4 in 1985). Regular presenter of Night Ride and The Early Show and then the overnight show 1995-98 alternating with Charles Nove. Later on BBC Eastern Counties with the evening show. Currently on BBC Radio Berkshire in the early morning.
Sean Maffett
A Squadron Leader in the RAF who first got involved in radio on a civilian attachment to BBC Radio Oxford where he ended up broadcasting with Libby Purves and Timmy Mallett. Progressed to work on BBC World Service's Outlook, was a reporter and producer on Today and appeared on Going Places. Radio 4 announcer August 1987 to January 1988. Has made numerous documentaries and broadcasts usually on an aviation theme. Now provides live airshow commentaries most recently as part of Airsound with former BBC producer Jonathan Ruffle. One of his most memorable moments was taking part in a flypast of Buckingham Palace in a Lancaster bomber reporting live into Radio 4.
John Marsh
Broadcasting career started in TV as a cameraman and then technical operator and studio management. Announcer on BBC World Service 1970 and Radio 4 from 1973. Transferred to Radio 2 in 1982. Presented Marching and Waltzing. Retired in 2007 but on-air until 2010. Latterly was regular newsreader on Terry Wogan's Radio 2 Breakfast Show and featured in the Janet & John stories.
Lucy Marshall
Continuity shifts in March to June 2001.
Bryan Martin
Was a child acctor in drama productions for Children's Hour. After working as a medical photographer at Manchester Royal Infirmary he joined the BBC in 1957 as a studio manager. Various announcing shifts in the Regions and on the General Overseas Service before being taken on as full-time announcer in May 1963. Worked on Home, Light and Third and would eventually join the Radio 4 presentation team, becoming senior newsreader in the 1980s. Retired in 1992. Died in 2009 aged 73.
Edgar Martin
Mainly worked as a TV announcer in Northern Ireland, initally at UTV then for the BBC. Radio 4 announcer from March 1978 until 1981. Retired from the BBC in 2006.
Matt McDougall
Only recorded appearance is 31 March 1994.
Maurice McGuire
Radio and TV announcer who was on Radio 4 between September and December 1979. Then a TV news director and TV producer in Belfast and on Songs of Praise. Now Membership Secretary for the BBC Pensioners' Society.
Annie McKie
After leaving drama school worked in repertory theatre for eight years. She began her career in broadcasting as an in vision continuity announcer on HTV West and eighteen months later she moved to the BBC's Points West. After presenting programmes on BBC Radios Bristol and Gloucestershire she became a Radio 4 announcer in 1998 and started to read the news for Radio 4 in 2004. Left the station in 2012. Now a fiction writer and coaches and mentors other writers.
David Miles
Joined the BBC in 1975 as a Studio Manager. Trainee announcer on Radio 4 appearing on-air May to July 1980. BBC TV continuity announcer 1981-1995. On Channel 4 before returning to Radio 4 in 1996. Has also announced on a number of Sky documentary channels.
Simon Milner
Joined the BBC in 1981 as a studio manager. Radio 4 announcer Nov 1985-Apr 1986 then on Radio 3 Oct 1987-June 1990. Left the BBC to work for the British Council.
Roger Moffat
BBC announcer in the 1950s long associated with the Northern Dance Orchestra show Make Way for Music. In the 60s he also presented It’s One O’Clock, Music Through Midnight, Startime, Stay Late and Midday Spin. Continued with Radio 2 on Night Ride and Things Are Swingin’. Appeared on Radio 4 in the late 1960s. Left the BBC and was next heard on Radio Hallam in the mid-70s. Died in 1986
Kate Moon
Previously a Studio Manager and Station Assistant before becoming an announcer on Radio 4 (1980-86) and then Channel 4. Now runs Kate Moon Management Ltd talent agency.
Ray Moore
Best known for hosting shows on Radio 2 in the late 60s and early 70s Ray was still reading the news and announcing across the networks until early 1972. A former TV announcer he presented on the Light Programme from 1966. Became a regular on Breakfast Special and for many years Radio 2's Early Show. Died in 1989.
Rory Morrison
Presenter at Beacon Radio and WABC 1987-1990. Joined BBC working in local radio - Leeds, York & Cleveland - then BFBS and finally Radio 4 as announcer then newsreader from 1994. Died in 2013.
Allis Moss
BBC TV and radio announcer working for Radio 4 (between April and September 1997) and the World Service. BBC local stations include Sussex and Kent. Appeared with Danny Baker on his Radio 1 and Radio 5 shows. Also on LBC, Viking Radio and Radio France International. In 2016 & 2017 was the official announcer at Wimbledon.
Alexander Moyes
BBC radio announcer and newsreader from late 40s. Also presented The Golden Treasury of Music and Song and Pick of the Week on Home Service and Melody Hour, Music We Love and Limelight on Light Programme and Morning Melody on Radio 4. Worked for the station until 1969. Also on Radio 3.
Patrick Muirhead
Worked as a journalist and broadcaster at LBC/IRN, Radio 1, BBC World Service, BSB, ITV in London, the South east and Channel islands. Radio 4 announcer and newsreader from December 1997 until August 2004, when he left the BBC. In recent years he was running a menswear shop in Sussex before retraining as a commercial helicopter pilot and moving first to the Seychelles and then Antigua. Now back in the Seychelles working for the country's Broadcasting Corporation (Photo is taken in Mahe beach). Audio includes news of the Twin Towers disaster that Patrick considers his "undoubted broadcasting career highlight".
Martin Muncaster
Long-running presenter of South at Six on BBC TV during the 60s, he'd previously worked at Southern TV. Career started with the BBC 's General Oversea's Service in 1956 and the following year an in-vision announcer on BBC TV. Also a compere on Come Dancing and presented music shows on the Light Programme and Today on the Home Service/Radio 4 (1965-69). Introduced Let the Peoples Sing on Network Three/Radio 3. On Radio 4 presented Morning Melody, All Kinds of Music, 4th Dimension, For All Seasons and reporting on The Countryside in... Read the news and announced until 1973. Also presented Songs of Praise on BBC1 and Sunday Half-Hour on Radio 2.
Katrin Mylor
World Service newsreader and presenter in the 1990s. Some Radio 4 continuity shifts between November 1991 and May 1992 and again in April 1994.
Caroline Nicholls
BBC career started as a journalist and producer at BBC Southern Counties Radio. Has been on Radio 4 since 2004
Colin Nicol
Born in Australia his first job was as radio announcer on 6PM-AM and then 6KY. Travelling to Europe he signed up with Radio Atlanta in 1964 before transferring to Radio Caroline. Radio England, Britain Radio and Radio Luxembourg followed until he became a BBC staff announcer in 1968 mainly on Radio 2 but with some shifts on Radio 4. Moved to BFBS in Malta and Gibraltar before a return down under and back to Radio 6KY. Last reported as running a city centre precinct in Perth
Neil Nunes
Broadcasting career started in Jamaica and the Caribbean. A correspondent for the BBC Caribbean Service. Joined the BBC World Service as current affairs producer and presenter and a newsreader. Joined Radio 4 as an announcer in 2006.
Sarah Olowe
As a journalist she was very active in the NUJ. Worked at Radio 4 as a reporter and presenter and on BBC World Television. Continuity announcer December 1994 to August 1995 and again in April 1996. Died in 2008 aged just 45.
Jamie Owen
Joined the BBC in 1986 in the Radio 3 music department then Radio 4 as newsreader and announcer from 1990 where he continued to work occasional shifts until September 1997. Moved back to his native Wales as TV announcer and presenter of BBC Wales Today. Has a weekly show on Radio Wales.
Geoff Oxley
Whilst working in education, presented arts shows on BBC Radio Nottingham and news bulletins for BBC East Midlands TV. On Radio 2 from 1989 and occasionally presented Night Ride. Some continuity shifts on Radio 4 in late 1991/early 1992 before joining Look East as a news presenter (1992-96). Became a humanist funeral celebrant and now retired but busy as a crossword setter for The Daily Telegraph (as Firefly) and the village magazine.
Kate Palmer
On Radio 4 in October 1990
Andrew Peach
Presents a morning news and phone-in show on BBC Radio Berkshire and in October 2017 will mark his 25 years at the station. He has also presented network programmes such as PM on BBC Radio 4, The Stephen Nolan Show on BBC Radio 5 Live and Newshour on the BBC World Service. Grew up in Bloxwich in the West Midlands. In 1989, he won a competition to spend a few days in Cologne compiling radio reports about life in Germany. He loved it so much that while reading Modern History at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he started getting up as early as the rowers to present travel bulletins on BBC Radio Oxford. He has also presented programmes on BBC Radio Solent and BBC WM. Was a Radio 2 announcer and newsreader from 1998-2015 and joined the Radio 4 team for some evening shifts from 2016.
Brian Perkins
Born in New Zealand his first broadcast was for NZBS in May 1962. In the UK from 1965 working across all networks and hosting shows on the Light Programme. Returned to New Zealand in 1969 before rejoining the BBC in the summer of 1978 as an announcer on Radio 4. Made guest appearances on Noel Edmond's Radio 1 shows from 'Perkins Grange' in the early 80s. Retired in 2003 but continued as a freelance until 2010. (Thanks to Corrie Corfield for this audio).
Howard Philpott
Born in London and raised in Bexhill-on-Sea. Trained as a quantity surveyor before joining the BBC as a studio manager in 1975. Moved through a series of production and journalism posts until he went freelance and began working as an announcer and newsreader for BBC World Service. Joined Radio 4 in 2003. Died in 2017.
Donald Price
Started on the Home Service in July 1964, appearing on the Third Programme from 1966. Some Radio 4 shifts but was a regular announcer on Radio 3 for many years.
Iain Purdon
Radio 2 1982-94 where he was Presentation Editor and only occasionally on-air. Previously at BBC Radio Scotland and Radio CWR. Moved to BFBS and then short stint on Radio 4 in 1994 before moving to BBC World Service (from 1995) as newsreader. Read the last ever news bulletin from Bush House in July 2012. Retired in 2016.
Susan Rae
Two stints on Radio 4, first between 1983 and 1986, and again from 2003 to date. First job with the BBC in Aberdeen before moving down to Radio 4. Became a presenter on You and Yours and then BBC1's Open Air. Narrated many documentary series. Moved back to radio in at the World Service in 2000 and then Radio 4. Also on Radio 4 Extra and newsreader on Radio 3.
Dalya Raphael
Newsreader on commercial stations Heart, Red Rose, Piccadilly, London News Radio and News Direct (1992-98). Channel 5 news then moving to BBC News. Presenter and newsreadr on Radio 5 live 2002-2012. Some shifts on Radio 2 2014-15 and recently in 2015 & 2016 on Radio 4. As voiceover artist and currently the voice of Smooth Radio.
Cormac Rigby
Joined the BBC as a radio announcer in 1965 in response to an ad in the NME. Appeared on Radio 4 in the late 1960s. In 1968 attached as a programme planner for the Third Programme (by then part of Radio 3). Became the Presentation Editor in 1972. Left in 1985 to join the Catholic priesthood. Died in 2007.
Harriet Riley
On Radio 4 from June to December 1988.
John Roberts
A New Zealander who was a relief BBC TV newsreader in the early 60s then a Home Service and Light Programme announcer from 1964. Presented music programmes on the Light including the first edition of Breakfast Special. Appeared on all the new networks, but mainly Radio 3 and Radio 4 between September and December 1967.
Alison Rooper
Brought up in Hong Kong where her mother, Tina Mickel, was a broadcaster. In UK studied at Central School of Speech and Drama and was a voice and dialect coach before joining the World Service as newsreader. TV announcer on TVS and Channel 4 before going back to the BBC as a newsreader on Radio 4 from 1989 to 2005 then moving over to Radio 3.
Clive Roslin
Best known as a BBC TV announcer 1964-1983 but also on the Light Programme in 1966-4 presenting International Spin and Twelve O'Clock Spin. Part of launch team on London's LBC hosting The Afternoon Show then in 1974 with Douglas Cameron on AM. Radio 4 announcer from 1983 until July 1991. Was recently on Sunday Jewish Radio prior to its closure.
Claire Runacres
Continuity announcer on Radio 4 from July 2003 to March 2004. Broadcast journalist and newsreader on 6 Music and Radio 2.
Andy Rushton
Former studio manager who was Test Match Special announcer 1998-2007. Also did normal Radio 4 announcing shifts between 1994 and 1997, and again in May 1999. Now a recording engineer for Radio 3.
Tom Sandars
Radio career started on BBC Radio Shropshire in 1998 then Radio WM. Presenter on Midlands Today and Sky News. Newsreader on BBC Radio 5 live (2003-2013) and Radio 2 and 6 Music (2007-2017). Started continuity shifts on Radio 4 from June 2017.
Vaughan Savidge
Broadcasting career started in Hong Kong . Job with BFBS led to a move to Gibraltar and then Germany where he worked in TV. Worked on producing training and corporate films for BFBS in London and then back in Hong Kong. Joined BBC as freelance in 1996 working on the World Service, Radio 4 and Radio 3.
Tanya Schlumm
No information available
Peter Shoesmith
Former actor before moving into TV newsreading in the mid-60s at TWW, Tyne-Tees TV announcer for the BBC, Southern & Anglia. BBC World Service newsreader from 1970 with some work on Radio 4 from October 1972 to May 1973.
Andrea Simmons
Radio 2 newsreader 1992-2009 also working regularly on BBC Radio 5 Live. Appeared on Radio 4 in 1995. TV continuity announcer and voiceover work.
Juliette Skelly
BBC TV announcer, as Juliet Stubbing, from around 1989. Briefly on Radio 4 in 1994 an announcer. Now helps run Ian Skelly & Associates for her husband, Radio 3 broadcaster Ian Skelly.
Chris Slade
Presenter of Spotlight on BBC1 in the south-west. Radio 4 announcer and newsreader from April 1979 to 1989. Now runs number1media consultancy.
Neil Sleat
Started as a trainee engineer and then studio manager for the BBC World Service. Announcer on BBC for Europe before joining Radio 4 in 1999.
Mary Small
Formerly on BBC Radio Oxford and BBC TV announcer. For many years a World Service presenter and newsreader. On Radio 4 in 1995.
Alan Smith
After a career in business management he moved into broadcasting at BBC Radio Cumbria. Joined Radio 4 in 2002. Also read the news on Radio 2 for a while.
Douglas Smith
Famously the announcer on Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne. Started with the BBC Overseas Service in 1946, later worked on all the domestic networks. Continued to work on Radios 2 & 4 until 1972.
Zeb Soanes
Trained as an actor. TV announcer on BBC1 & BBC2 from 1998 and BBC Four at launch in 2002. Joined Radio 4 in 2003. Has presented concerts on Radio 3 and BBC TV and narrates documentaries.
Diana Speed
Trained as an actress. Joined Grampain TV as announcer and newsreader in 1986. Initially joined Radio 4 in 1999 as freelance, becoming full-time in December 2002.
Nick Spilman
Joined the BBC as a studio manager in 1979 before moving into TV and radio continuity. On Radio 4 around 1985. Also TV producer/director.
John Spurling
BBC announcer from 1963. Left in 1966 but returned in 1967 and was on-air until Sept 1968, mainly on Radio 3 but some Radio 4 shifts. Author and playwright.
Jonathan Staples
Started in local radio at BBC Oxford and BBC Cambridgeshire. A 6-month stint at Radio 4 in 1988/89 was followed by BFBS Radio, LBC, News Direct 97.3 and Radio Northampton. Now runs a video production company.
Sara Starling
Radio Studio Manger before moving into announcing and newsreading on Radio 4 (1995-97), World Service and BFBS. Was TV Channel Director for BBC Wales then newsreader on BBC Radio Wales. Now freelance voiceover
Jane Steel
Originally on Radio 4 as Jane Watson from August 1994 to December 2005 but back on the station as announcer and newsreder. On Channel 4 in the mid-90s.
CathyStewart
A BBC TV announcer for many years. Also presenter on BBC World Service. Some announcing shifts on Radio 4 in May & June 1985. Also a reader on Feedback and Stop Press.
Richard Straker
Best known as a BBC TV announcer 1971-95. Joined the BBC as a studio manager in 1963 later working for news and current affairs. Radio 4 announcer October 1969-January 1970 before moving to TV.
Moira Stuart
Started at BBC in 1970s as a production assistant. In October 1977 became an announcer on Radio 4 before moving to Radio 2 in March 1980. Left the station in July 1981. Joined BBC TV as newsreader in 1981 before being dropped in 2007. In 2010 re-joined Radio 2 as newsreader on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show and also has a Sunday evening music show.
Robert Sutton
Newsreader on Radio 4 between Oct 1972 and March 1973.
David Symonds
Two stints on Radio 4 1978-79 and 1985-88. Broadcasting career encompases New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Light Programme, Radio 1, Radio Luxembourg, Capital Radio, Radio Victory, Radio 2, Capital Gold, Coast FM in Cyprus and currently The Roolz, an online station from south west France.
Jonathan Thompson
Radio 4 announcer from September 2001 to February 2002.
Lucy Thorpe
News presenter on GLR and broadcast journalist on Radio 5 live. On Radio 4 in the mid-90s. Has since moved into PR and social media marketing.
Sheila Tracy
First broadcast was as the Tracy Sisters in 1958 on In Town Tonight and then Workers Playtime, Mid-Day Music Hall and Saturday Club. BBC TV announcer from February 1961. On Light Programme in February 1963 presenting Late Choice. Also on Melody Fair, Anything Goes and Music for Late Night People. Presented regional tv programmes such as Spotlight South West and South Today. On Radio 4 as announcer from October 1973. Joined Radio 2 in January 1977 where she hosted The Late Show, You and the Night and the Music, The Early Show and Saturday Night with the BBC Radio Orchestra. Best known for the Truckers’ Hour and Big Band Special from 1979 to 2001. Last regular radio appearances on The Wireless. Died in 2014.
Philip Trelevan
On Radio 4 for a couple of periods: July to October 1973 and February to August 1974.
Luke Tuddenham
Broadcasting career started at BBC Radio Norfolk. After a period in South Africa and then back in East Anglia he joined Radio 4 in 2011.
Steve Urquhart
Radio documentaries / features producer and sound artist, also working as announcer on Radio 4 and 4 Extra from 2012 to 2016. Previously a promotions producer for Radio 4 and Radio 3. Also worked for the Prison Radio Association and now provides continuity announcements for BBC One and BBC Two Scotland. Radio career began in 1995 at Subcity Radio in Glasgow, followed by Jazz FM, Radio Scotland, Raffles FM and then as presenter/producer at BBC Radio Cumbria and BBC WM.
Simon Vance
Started at Radio Brighton in 1980 as a Station Assistant before joining Radio 4 in 1983 as newsreader/announcer until February 1992. Read Talking Books for RNIB. In 1992 moved to California where he runs a business reading audiobooks.
Kate Walsh
Actress and voiceover artist. Worked as continuity announcer on Discovery UK channels. Some Radio 4 announcing shifts in late 2016/early 2017 and now regularly heard on BBC TV.
Humphrey Walwyn
BBC newsreader 1970-71 on Radios 1, 2 & 4 and World Service, working on Radio 4 from June to October 1970. One of the presenters of Night Ride. Head of Popular Music at BBC World Service 1974-85, Head of BBC Records & Tapes 1985-88, CEO Mainstream Records 1990-96, Director of Product Development at Linguaphone 1996-2000
John Webster
BBC announcer from the mid-1940s to 1972. Best remembered for his reading of the classified football results on Sports Report (1948-72). Presented a number of music shows on the Light Programme and Can I Help? and Morning Melody on Radio 4. Last shifts on Radio 4 in October 1970.
Jane Westhorp
On Radio 4 in 1989
Jonathan Wheatley
TV announcer at Meridian and HTV Wales. News presenter on Sky. Radio 4 announcer briefly in April 1996. Presenter and announcer on BBC World Service 2004-2012. Also worked for Monocle 24 2011-15.
Marion White
Scottish TV announcer in 1970s. On Radio 4 February to September 1974.
Dwight Whylie
BBC’s first black announcer joining the BBC in 1965. Previously chief announcer with the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation and then working in the High Commissioner's Office in London. Presenter on Radio 1 & 2 of Night Ride where he also read the news and announced. Also on Radio 4 in the late 60s. Returned to Jamaica in the early 70s and headed the JBC. Died in 2002
Roy Williams
Continuity announcer in the 40s, 50s and 60s appearing on Radio 4 briefly until his retirement in November 1967.
Roy Williamson
BBC studio manager in 1956 becoming an announcer on the Light Programme in 1957. On the Music Programme in 64-65 with Your Midweek Choice. Newsreader on BBC1's Town and Around.Newsreader on Radio 4 (1967-74) before moving over to Radio 3.
David Willmott
On Forces Broadcasting Service in Egypt in 1950 before joining the BBC as a studio manager in 1953. Worked in both radio and television as a drama director. For a time at the BBC in Manchester. Announcer and newsreader on Radio 4 and then Radio 3 from 1979. Returned to Radio 4 in the late 80s until 1993.
Bruce Wyndham
Best known as a presenter of Breakfast Special on the Light Programme and Radio 2. Read the first news bulletin on Radio 4 on the morning of 30 September 1967 and read other bulletins until November. "Half wind, half ham" joined the BBC in 1948 as an announcer on the General Overseas Service. Became duty operation assistant in 1959 before moving across to the Light Programme as announcer in 1964. Continued to appear on Radio 2 until 1975. Freelance from 1976 when he worked for Radio 210 in Reading and made a brief return to Radio 2 in June 1977 for the odd news reading shift. Moved to Radio Hallam in 1978 and died in Sheffield later that year.
Catriona Young
Studio manager and arts producer before moving to Radio 4 as announcer and newsreader from April 1988 to November 1993. On Radio 3 where she presented On Air, Morning Collection and now Through the Night.
'The Sunday newspaper of the air' was how BBC Home Service controller Gerard Mansell described The World this Weekend when it launched on 17 September 1967. A spin-off of the successful The World at Onethat had been on-air since October 1965, the Sunday lunchtime version shared the same DNA as its weekday stable mate, with the formidable team of presenter William Hardcastle and editor Andrew Boyle.
Mansell, writing in theRadio Times, explained further: "Sunday journalism has long been a prominent feature of the British scene. In fact, more Sunday papers are published and read in this country than elsewhere in the Western world. Yet, oddly enough, radio has not up till now provided its own 'Sunday newspaper of the air'. At the weekend, with the exception of News Bulletins and Radio Newsreel, it has tended to 'soft pedal' Current Affairs. Now the gap is to be filled with the new Home Service programme The World This Weekend..."
Writing in the same issue William Hardcastle (see article reproduced above) assured listeners that the new programme would not be a "radio rissole - a warm-up material from previous programmes. Like its parent it will be based firmly on the essential and up-to-the minute service of the one o'clock news, and will be wholly composed of brand-new material designed to explain and interpret that news".
From the start, and for many years, The World this Weekend had a full hour which, according to Hardcastle, together with "the more relaxed and spacious atmosphere of the weekend, should give us new opportunities to try some of our less-than-orthodox approaches to the news. It will also enable us to treat some subjects more thoroughly; to look forward more piercingly; to sum up more trenchantly."
For listeners in the 1970s and 80s the voice most associated with The World this Weekend was Gordon Clough, indeed he was the programmes sole presenter for nearly a decade from 1976. The earliest recording I can track down is from 16 September 1984 with Clough at the helm, the news read by Eugene Fraser - leading on the naming of Prince Harry and the ongoing miners' dispute - and an interview with Energy Secretary Peter Walker.
The regular presenters over the five decades have been: William Hardcastle (1967-69), Anthony Howard (1969-71), David Jessel (1970-71), Nicholas Woolley (1971-75), Gordon Clough (1972-91), John Sergeant (1987-88), Nick Clarke (1989-94), Roger Hearing (1991-92), Susannah Simons (1991-92), James Cox (1992-2005), Shaun Ley (2005 to present), Brian Hanrahan (2006-10) and Mark Mardell (2014 to present).
Fifty years ago this month, on Friday 29 September 1967, the BBC Light Programme closed down, in name if not entirely in spirit, to be replaced by Radio 2. Regular listeners to the Light wouldn't have been too disturbed by the changes brought about by that young pop upstart Radio 1. Sure Music While You Work and Housewives' Choice had been dropped but you could still get you fill of Max Jaffa, The Dales and the Frank Chacksfield Orchestra.
So how what was offered up on the final day on the Light? Well I've dug out my Radio Times back issue and taken a look.
I can't be certain if the Light Programme was still using the Oranges and Lemons theme to gently usher in the day, but if it did it may have sounded a little like this.
The broadcasting day started at 5.30 a.m. (you'll notice a few programmes starting at half past or a quarter past the hour; drawing up the schedule was a considerably more complex task back then) with Breakfast Special. This was always presented by one of the staff announcers, today the turn of Peter Latham. Whilst there are off-air recordings of Breakfast Special with Paul Hollingdale, Ray Moore and John Dunn I've heard nothing of Peter. So instead here he is reading the news on Radio 1 and Radio 2.
David Hamilton once wrote that "my BBC bosses gave me the job of burying the Light Programme". And sure enough he features at either end of the day. "I wondered if the BBC were trying to tell me something". David had been appearing on the Light since The Beat Show in 1963 ("the band with the beat that's reet") but on the final day "I was tucked away in the basement hosting the very last week of Housewives' Choice... Everybody who was anybody had presented that programme, but it looked as though I would be the only one to do so and then be instantly forgotten." No recordings of David on Housewives' Choice exist but we can hear how David sounded in September 1967 thanks to this recording from Friday 8th of Music Through Midnight (more of which below).
One BBC radio stalwart that played out for the final time was Music While You Work. Introduced in 1940 "specially for factory workers to listen to as they work" the Corporation had decided it'd run its course. Featuring on that final show was a musician who'd appeared on the first day too, Jimmy Leach. A composer, pianist and organist, just before the war Leach had joined forces with the trio Organola, who a year later would become The Organolists. The group went on to appear in 256 editions of Music While You Work. Remarkably that final edition has survived and comes from the archive of Brian Reynolds. You can download it from this page on his Masters of Melody website. Amongst all the traditional tunes the one nod to pop is Penny Lane. The opening announcer is Brian Hudson and rounding things off is Paul Hollingdale.
Orchestral music was still the order of the day, from light music to the more 'poppy' end of the musical scale, with the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra, the BBC Midland Light Orchestra, the Joe Loss Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra all featuring at different time of the day. The Midland Light Orchestra was one of the BBC's most prolific in-house orchestras, broadcasting every week, sometimes two or three times a week, from 1947 until the late 1960s - it was eventually disbanded in 1973. On 29 September they were part of the Music in the Air programme under the direction of their regular conductor Gilbert Vintner. This is how they sounded in 1963 performing one of their regular morning sequences of music.
Some of the former pirate DJs had already come back to dry land before the start of Radio 1 and got a try-out on the Light Programme. That list included Tony Blackburn and Dave Cash plus, and appearing here, Pete Brady with Midday Spin and Keith Skues on Swingalong.
The cast of The Dales after the final recording in 1969 (Getty Images)
The Dales, Roundabout - this week with Desmond Carrington - and News Time would transfer to Radio 2. Newly Pressedwould become What's New on Radio 1. There's a rather curious programme at 7.30 pm called Movietime. This was a long-running series, it started in 1961 though there'd been similar programmes before that, which provided adapted film soundtracks for a radio audience. One can only imagine how Gordon Gow managed to cut down the nearly two-hour action-packed You Only Live Twice to a meaningful 30 minutes of radio.
Friday evening sees two programmes that still grace the airwaves five decades on: Any Questions?which would shift over to Radio 4 in 1970 and Friday Night is Music Night, then in its 14th year. The recording of Friday Night is Music Night I can offer nearest to this date is from 25 July 1969. The setting is The Assembly Hall in Worthing. Many of the participants are the same as you'd have heard in September 1967: the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Sidney Torch, William Davies at the piano, The Friday Knights directed by John McCarthy and the announcer Jimmy Kingsbury.
Diddy David was back in the evening for Music Through Midnight, which would become Late Night Extra on Radios 1 and 2, though, initially at least, without David. By the time midnight arrived it was party time in the rather packed studio. In the nine minutes of off-air audio that survives the DJs who pop in, and most seem to have consumed a fair amount of BBC plonk, include Johnny Moran, Miranda Ward, Duncan Johnson, Tony Blackburn, Chris Denning, Roger Moffat, Bruce Wyndham, Mike Lennox and Bill Crozier plus Cindy Kent of The Settlers.
The task of closing the Light Programme after 22 years fell to staff announcer Roger Moffat with It's One O'Clock. In this clip you'll hear an off-air recording of Roger chatting to his old Make Way for Music chum, the singer Sheila Buxton. We then get the final 2 am news bulletin and closedown which the BBC did keep: "There we end broadcasting in the Light Programme, not just for today but, as it seems, forever..."
Later that morning witnessed, in the words of station controller Robin Scott, "the strident birth-pangs of a much-heralded and rather bouncy new radio network - or, rather, the emergence of two new programmes, one resembling in many respects the old Light (but with a number of new features), the other brand new in style (but sharing some of the most popular features of the other)". It was welcome to the world BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2.
BBC Radio 2 remembers the days of the Light Programme in the two-part documentary The Story of the Light the first of which airs this evening. The series is produced by Made in Manchester.
Jingles on Radio 4? Surely not. Well, yes. At least twice to my knowledge.
According to David Hendy's Life On Air in 1968 station controller Gerard Mansell oversaw the introduction of "musical jingles during some awkward gaps between programmes and during the run up to bulletins". I've no idea who composed them and I've never heard any recordings of these mystery jingles. Do any copies exist I wonder?
The next set were introduced in late 1977, and I know this for a fact as I recorded them. Arranged by Fritz Spiegl they were a series a short instrumental tracks plus a full two and a half minute theme inspired by Dances from Terpsichore composed by 17th century German composer Michael Praetorius. As far as I'm aware these 'jingles' were in use in late 1977 and most of 1978 and the full Praetorius Dance Tune was used to open up the network. This replaced the Spiegl arranged Skipping Tune, first used in 1973, and in turn was replaced in November 1978 by what would eventually be called the UK Theme. This corrects the impression I gave in a 2011 blog post which suggested that the UK Theme replaced the Skipping Tune.
Here's a selection of those jingles plus the full theme used to start the day on Radio 4. They conjure up an image of a dance at the Elizabethan court. Welcome to Ye Olde Radio 4 perhaps.
Hendy goes on to mention that "a limited number of Radio 4 jingles are also introduced" in 1978 at the same time as the November wavelength changes, only to be dropped the following year. Now I've been racking my brain about this. Did they use variations on the UK Theme? If they did I don't think I recorded any. Can you offer any assistance here?
When the Third Network - the umbrella title for the Music Programme, the Third Programme, the Sports Service and the Study Session - became Radio 3 on 30 September 1967, listeners won't have noticed any difference. It was very much business as usual. All the component parts retained their own names, controllership of the Third remained under Howard Newby and the Music Programme continued to be the responsibility of the Controller of the Home Service, which became Radio 4 of course, Gerard Mansell.
Here's the final Saturday schedule for the Third Network for 23 September 1967, the start of the 21st anniversary week for the Third Programme.
And here's the Radio Times listings a week later under the Radio 3 banner for 30 September 1967.
Daytime on the Third Network was given over to the Music Programme that had been introduced in August 1964; prior to that the channel was mostly silent during the day. About 99% of the daytime music was classical, but during the week there was the odd programme devoted to light music, brass bands and jazz. On weekdays the service ran from 7.00 am to 6.30 pm with an hour's Study Sessionacting as a buffer before the evening's listening on the Third Programme.
You'll no doubt spot a couple of programmes that still crop up on Radio 3's Saturday schedule. Jazz Record Requests dates from 1964 when Humphrey Lyttelton was the first presenter, from April 1967 Steve Race took over the role. The other is Record Review which had first appeared back in 1957.
Occupying the afternoon slot between 12.30 pm and 6.00 pm was the Sports Service. This had originally started as a summer fixture in 1961 but became an all year programme from, yes you've guessed it 1964. It incorporated Sports Report that had started out on the Light Programme. Note that the presenter for both afternoons is staff announcer Michael de Morgan. This is typical of that period; sports journalists didn't really take over the role until Peter Jones joined the team in 1968.
The evening was given over to the Third Programme offering its mix of classical music, drama and talks. For the opening night under the new network the prime offering was a concert from the Berlin Festival featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez.
The network didn't fully shift over to its new name for another two and a half years when the policies of the internal review Broadcasting in the Seventies were formally adopted. By 1969 an internal working party had already concluded: "We recommend dropping the names 'Third Programme' and 'Music Programme' and uniting the whole network and programme service under the single title 'Radio 3'. The Third Programme in particular has made a great name for itself and the loss of this title will be depreciated by some but it undoubtedly has connotations which discourage a large number who might have enjoyed many of its programmes from tuning into it. A new title will help to emphasise that we are making changes and that we intend to be free from past commitments".
D-Day for the first phase of the network realignment was Saturday 4 April 1970. Here's the Radio 3 line-up, and it's now music all the way from 8.00 am to 11.30 pm with three evening talks, one on Bertrand Russell, the second from economics historian Robert Skidelsky and the third on Frank Lloyd Wright. There's no drama, that's over on Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre, but on Sunday there's Marva from Russian playwright Isaac Babel with a cast that includes Paul Eddington and Fenella Fielding. As for the sport that had now shifted over to Radio 2 as Sport on 2.
On Radio 3's 40th anniversary Tom Service traced the changes in the station's sound and its cultural impact. This edition of Music Matters was heard on Saturday 6 October 2007 and includes contributions from Lord Asa Briggs, Georgina Born, Robert Ponsonby, Harrison Birtwistle, Ned Chaillet, Paul Gambaccini, Nicholas Kenyon and Roger Wright.
Radio 3 enjoyed a classical music monopoly for the first quarter of a century of its existence until the arrival of Classic FM in 1992.
You could, of course, hear drama and talks over on Radio 4. Radio 3 even covered current affairs on programmes such as Six Continents (1979-87). There was a smattering of classical music elsewhere on the dial on Radio 2 and Radio 4 on These You Have Loved, Baker's Dozen and Melodies for You. Even some of the new ILR stations got in on the act - Capital sponsored the Wren Orchestra of London - but it amounted to no more than an hour or so a week. So when Classic FM came along Radio 3 had to up is game.
Ahead of Classic FM's September 1992 launch, in June the BBC announced 'BBC Radio 3 FM's New Look' with controller Nicholas Kenyon explaining he wanted to create "access points" for new listeners, whatever that meant. They appointed Saatchi and Saatchi as advertising agents and in the Autumn launched the glossy BBC Music Magazine.
The morning sequence of records linked by a staff announcer, Morning Concert, was dropped in favour of On Air, while the teatime Mainly for Pleasure would become In Tune. The BBC described the new programmes as "two weekday programmes with named presenters, of mostly popular classical music with new headlines, weather, traffic information, previews, news of the music world". The main loss for listeners was a reduction in drama on the station. "Music Plus" was the strapline, but one critic described this as a euphemism for "Drama Less".
This is how On Airsounded when its first edition was heard on the morning of Monday 13 July 1992. Piers Burton-Page, a music presenter and producer and previously a continuity announcer and newsreader on both Radio 3 and Radio 4.
Those news headlines that Piers reads every 20 minutes were an unwelcome addition with Kenyon later admitting "our presenters talked too much" Adding "I now tell them to be economical with words. I also accept that perhaps we went slightly too far and threw out too many well-known programme labels."
In 1993 the BBC produced this glossy 24-page booklet promoting Radio 3's wares. The quote on the back cover from composer Harrison Birtwistle hints that this was the BBC firing its big guns at Classic FM: "Radio 3 is in danger of becoming the last refuge of the serious music-lover. In times when concert programmes show a remarkable similarity, and classical music through the popular media is reduced to a mere cosmetic continuum to our lives, its excellence is increasingly more important".
As successive controllers of BBC Radio 4 can testify, when tinkering with the programme schedule you do so at your own peril. It's almost as if the schedule has been passed down on tablets of stone from John Reith himself. As a listener once wrote to former network controller Michael Green: "You are simply the custodian of ournetwork."
From April 1970 the main news and current affairs were Today with Jack de Manio , The World at One, with William Hardcastle, the newly introduced PM, again with Hardcastle, News Desk with Gerald Priestland (dropped in 1976) and The World Tonight with Douglas Stuart
Tony Whitby (controller 1969 until his untimely death in 1975) was tasked with re-shaping the network in response to the Broadcasting in the Seventies policy. The schedule inherited from the Home Service was a bit of a dog's dinner: cross-network repeats (with both Radio 2 and Radio 3), schools programmes blocking out huge chunks of the mid-morning and mid-afternoon in term-time, music programmes and concerts (in 1968 these accounted for 21% of Radio 4's output), talks, bits of sports coverage and loads of regional variations. From April 1970 news and current affairs was to be the backbone of the revised Radio 4 schedule. The far-reaching Broadcasting in the Seventies policy naturally enough caused a public outcry, letters to The Times, questions in Parliament and union unrest within the BBC. But the result, at least as far as Radio 4 was concerned, provided a number of significant and long-lasting programmes: Start the Week, Week Ending, PM and Analysis. During Whitby's tenure we also got You and Yours, Sunday, It's Your Line, Stop the Week, Kaleidoscope, Checkpoint and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Ian McIntyre (controller 1976-78) wasn't happy with the way current affairs was serving Radio 4 so in May 1977 he took an axe to it, chopping Today in two and, later that same year, hacking 15 minutes off PM thus earning himself the sobriquet 'Mac the Knife'. Today was now prefaced and separated by two sequences called Up to the Hour that offered the news headlines, sport, weather, paper reviews and Thought for the Day mixed with programme previews plus bits of comedy and music all linked by a staff announcer. The Today production team were unimpressed, "absolute crap, the floor-sweepings" according to editor Mike Chaney, who didn't mince his words. The announcers were not happy, with Peter Donaldson earning a slap on the wrists for introducing one edition as 'Donald Peterson' sending you "round the dial to Radio 3" and "if you're staying, you're very brave, and welcome to Up to the Hour". The full-length Today was re-instated in July 1978.
The Radio Times billing for the first edition of Rollercoaster 5 April 1984
Steeped in BBC history as he was, David Hatch (controller 1983-86) a former radio producer, Head of Light Entertainment and Controller of Radio 2, felt he had to tackle the problem zone of the mid-morning dip, i.e. between Today and You and Yours, when listening figures fell off. In April 1984 he introduced, for just one morning a week, Rollercoaster, a programme sequence linked by that safe pair of hands, Richard Baker, and built up of programme fragments such as news, chat, topical phone-ins, traffic reports, features, a cut-down Daily Service, a Morning Story read by Peter Adamson, a radio strip-cartoon called Able Seagull Herringand link-ups with local radio stations. This looser style of scheduling actually pulled in respectable audience figures but was a critical failure and after the six-month experiment it was pulled, never to be repeated.
When James Boyle was appointed controller in 1997 he was determined to avoid the station becoming a "museum piece" and sought a root and branch review of the programme schedule. He took a more scientific approach by travelling around the country speaking to listeners and by analysing every bit of data he could lay his hands on about listeners habits. A laudable approach but one that was criticised as putting Radio 4 in thrall of "ratings or computer-driven commissioning, more interested in form than in content, neglectful of intuition or serendipity."
The Guardian covers the Radio 4 changes in the Media supplement 16 March 1998
When the broadsheets got wind of Boyle's "strategic scheduling" they whipped up a storm. "Favourites face axe in revamp of Radio 4." MPs got involved when it was floated that Yesterday in Parliament was to be dropped - it wasn't.
Boyle's revamped schedule was introduced in April 1998. Out went Kaleidoscope (replaced by Front Row), Week Ending, The Afternoon Shift, Science Now, Medicine Now, Sport on 4, Mediumwave, Breakaway and Does He Take Sugar?Today and You and Yours were extended, Woman's Hour and The Archers retimed but with an extra visit to Ambridge added on Sunday evening. The World at One was docked by 10 minutes and a series of daily lunchtime quizzes introduced, some old (Round Britain Quiz) some new (Full Orchestra). The afternoon dramas, a mixture of new plays and in-week repeats of varying running times, were tidied up. It was a shock to the system and one which the listeners - and Radio 4 listeners love their routine - found hard to take as initially audience figures dipped with Boyle admitting they were "very disappointing".
The 1998 changes at Radio 4 are the subject of this BBC2 documentary from the Close-Up series. A more typical bunch of middle-class listeners you couldn't hope to find: a PR agent, a retired civil servant, an Open University lecturer and an office administrator plus the musings of Daily Telegraph radio critic Gillian Reynolds. James Boyle talks about the schedule shake-up to Feedback's Chris Dunkley. Added to this are some fascinating glimpses behind the scenes at Broadcasting House and look out for an in-vision appearance from chief announcer Peter Donaldson.
Close-Up: Radio Headswas first broadcast on BBC2 on 14 October 1998. Incidentally does anyone know what happened to Douglas Bolger and his tape collection?
As any gardener will tell up a good hard pruning will rejuvenate a plant and so it was with 1998 changes. Listening figures eventually bounced back and although some of the new shows did inevitably fall by the wayside the legacy included Home Truths,Broadcasting House, Saturday Review and The Archive Hour and most of the timeslots remain pretty much unchanged to this day.
I can't leave the subject without mentioning the furore surrounding the decision of Mark Damazer (controller 2004-2010) to drop the UK Theme. Cue letters from irate listeners, a national petition and an early Day Motion "that this House deplores the decision by the BBC to axe the UK Themewhich signals the switchover from the World Service to Radio 4 and symbolises the unity of the UK; and calls on the BBC to reinstate it." After 28 years it got its last play on 23 April 2006. I have a forlorn hope that Radio 4 will give it one last airing on the occasion of their 50th birthday. Heaven help the controller that drops Sailing By.
It's sad how, in the last couple of years, some of the links in the chain that tether Radio 2 to its old Light Programme counterpart have finally broken. Sir Terry Wogan, Sir Jimmy Young, Desmond Carrington and Brian Matthew all no longer with us.
Only Friday Night is Music Night remains the last true bastion of that post-war service, bringing "music for everyone" for the last 60-odd years. Programmes like Listen to the Band and The Organist Entertains sound like they should have been on the Light but are mere striplings of forty-ish years of age.
In this documentary from BBC Four's Time Shift series Whatever Happened to Radio 2?concentrates on those specialist music shows which serve the old Light Programme audience. The programme looks at Radio 2 from the audience perspective and includes the inevitable contribution from Gillian Reynolds. There's an emotional Desmond Carrington in his studio "at home in Scotland" talking about the bond with his listeners, the theatre organ enthusiasts flocking to see Nigel Ogden and the continued support for brass band music with Frank Renton and folk music with Mike Harding. There's a typically humorous performance from Humphrey Lyttelton and it closes with a coach load of pensioners attending a live performance of Friday Night is Music Night.
Whatever Happened to Radio 2? was first broadcast on 5 October 2007.
Apparently Radio 4 shops at Waitrose in the tiny village of Middle England and began life as a pirate station on a punt in Henley-on-Thames. So runs the premise of this bit of fun that dates from the network's 40th anniversary in 2007. Stephen Fry springs the big red book on Radio 4 played by Matt Lucas.
The performers are Michael Fenton-Stevens, Dave Lamb, Sue Perkins and Richie Webb. Its written, with obvious affection and care, by Bill Dare, Jon Holmes, John Finnemore, Nev Fountain and Tom Jamieson.
From the Radio Times issue starting 29 September 2007
Popping up in the course of proceedings are Radio 4 names Roger Bolton, Paul Lewis, Jonathan Dimbleby, Corrie Corfield, Peter White, Rabbi Lionel Blue, Sue Lawley, Jenni Murray, James Naughtie, Sarah Montague, John Humphries, Martin Jarvis, Charlotte Green, Rosaline Adams, Edward Kelsey, Carole Boyd, Barry Cryer and Nicholas Parsons.
Radio 4: This is Your Life was broadcast on Sunday 30 September 2007.
From earlier that same evening comes this rather more serious review of the station's history presented by Eddie Mair, 4 at 40, in which he searches for the 'soul' of Radio 4. There's a reminder of the battle over Broadcasting in the Seventies, the arguments over a rolling news service, an Archers primer for those that missed the previous five decades, its middle classness, the thoughts of Jeremy Hardy, the programmes that some would rather forget: Citizens, Rollercoaster and Anderson Country and how technology will change how we consume radio.
Joining Eddie in the studio are Liz Forgan, Chris Smith, Miranda Sawyer, Sarfraz Manzoor and Sean Street. We also hear from network controllers Monica Sims, Michael Green, James Boyle and Mark Damazer.
From 'Radio 1 is wonderful' to 'listen, watch, share' BBC Radio 1 is the one national network that has had to constantly evolve to address its young audience. Now in its middle age the station, understandably, rarely reflects back on its long history. After all if you remember the launch in 1967 chances are you're aged 60+. But this month its celebrating its heritage in real style with the pop-up station Radio 1 Vintage, oldies played each weekend on Radio 1's Greatest Hits and a series of Live Lounge specials.
In this, the first of four blog posts, I dip into the history of the station that once declared itself to be "the nation's favourite".
It's interesting, if ultimately fruitless, to speculate whether Radio 1 would have come about if not for the arrival of the offshore pirates. Before Radio Caroline burst onto the scene at Easter 1964 the old Light Programme offered little to the pop enthusiast; a smattering of current hits across the week, if you were lucky, on Housewives' Choice or Midday Spin and rather better catered for on Saturday Club, Easy Beat and Pick of the Pops.
Both the BBC and the Government's attitude to popular music was equivocal. Those ex-military types who ended up as BBC producers were presumably immune to the delights of rock 'n' roll. In any case the opportunity to even expand the amount of records aired was always stymied by the restrictive 'needletime' limits, just 28 hours a week across the national services of the Home, Light and Third in the early 60s (though agreement was reached to increase it to 75 hours in 1965).
By the time the pirates came along the first response was to stop them rather than seek an official alternative. As early as October 1964 there was pressure from the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union for the British Government to intervene, although the then Postmaster-General, Tony Benn, found he made slow progress.
It wasn't until February 1966 that we see the first suggestions of a new 'pop music network', though it would be "separately organised from the BBC and incorporating advertisements." A few months later it was floated that the BBC's 247-metre medium wavelength be used. The Corporation itself was of the mind to provide an alternative service, planning it as "a partial substitute for the programmes offered by the pirate broadcasters." The Labour government was, by late 66, more wedded to a long-term commercial hybrid, with the BBC running a new pop service in the short term pending the creation of a new radio corporation partly financed by advertising. However, when the White Paper on broadcasting policy was issued on 20 December 1966 the BBC had won the argument and was authorised to start a 'new popular music programme' on 247 metres "at an early date".
Part of the Corporation's lobbying had included a Q&A in the 8 October 1966 issue of the Radio Times titled Why No Continuous Pop?
Not surprisingly the BBC's response immediately hit back on the issue of needletime, or lack of it. It explained that it wasn't just a case of money. More time could simply not be bought. The bogey men were, it suggested, the gramophone companies who "are in the business to sell records. They are convinced that if they are broadcast too often - especially pop records - their sales will fall off". Apparently the companies claimed to have already lost sales "because of the way the pirates are using pop records".
The article then went on to partly lay the blame at the door of the Musicians' Union who believed an extension of needletime "would put their members out of jobs. It thinks there would be less work for them in broadcasting because fewer musicians would be used in broadcast or public concerts."
It's hard to believe that the record companies lost sales in the pirate radio era, though I've yet to find any evidence on total sales. Undoubtedly the Musicians' Union argument did hold water, particularly in the broadcast of orchestral music. One casualty of the end of the Light Programme was the loss of Music While You Work for example, though specially recorded and live broadcasts by bands and orchestras continued to be a feature of both Radio 1 and Radio 2 well into the 1970s, even though audiences wanted to hear 'the real thing'. Mind you the BBC didn't exactly endear itself to the MU when it started using American produced PAMS jingles for its new service.
Back to Why No Continuous Pop? and the Corporation was quick to defend itself. "The BBC isn't stuffy about pop. But pop is not the only kind of music". Nor, should it be forgotten, did all the pirate stations play non-stop pop: Radio 390 favoured a 'sweet music' format (plus a little bit of classical and country) and Britain Radio was firmly middle of the road.
Hints were then dropped as to what might happen. "In the short term, if the Government were to ask the BBC to provide an extra service of popular music it would do its best to do so." But then it would say that, wouldn't it.
What the Radio Timesdidn't say was that the BBC had already started to plan the new station. Robin Scott would, a few months later, be appointed to mastermind the operation - initially he was to become the Controller of the Light Programme but was already lined-up as de facto head of the new service. By now the BBC had successfully negotiated another two hours per day of extra needletime. Scott was given an additional £200,000 budget to carve out the two new networks from the remains of the Light Programme. He spent the early part of 1967 "listening, planning playing back audition tapes, drafting and redrafting schedules, taping the pirate stations' output, calculating and recalculating the allocation of the sparse needletime to the DJ shows which the new network would feature."
Publically the Corporation was suggesting it wouldn't be non-stop pop: "Now, there is to be only this one network of continuous popular music, and it is obvious that no single taste can be met in it at the same time. So what we are aiming at is a good, lively mixture, with special times of the day regularly earmarked for particular attention to such well-defined sections of the audience as the pop-lovers". In the event it wasn't all pop, at least not initially, as flicking through back issues of the Radio Times shows the evenings were given over to folk, country, jazz and easy listening in programmes shared with Radio 2.
At the end of June 1967 the Postmaster General, by now Edward Short (who'd replaced Benn after the 1966 General Election and the aftermath of the Reg Calvert shooting), announced that "Radio 247" (as it was referred to at that point, a name initially favoured by Robin Scott) would launch on 30 September and that it would be "a robust music service" Whatever that means? The following day in Parliament he used the name "Radio 1""as I understand it is to be called." (For some of the other suggested names see Standby for Switching.)
The next month the Director of Radio, Frank Gillard, made public the plans to 'kill off' the Home, Light and Third and replace it with radio by numbers. Gillard was very much behind the new naming system, he thought the name Home Service "ludicrous" Taking his cue from the BBC1 and BBC2 television service Radio 247 would be Radio 1. Because they would share programming the Light would be Radio 2. Carrying echoes of the Third Programme name that group of services - it included the Music Programme, the Sports Service and the Study Session - was branded Radio 3, meaning the Home became Radio 4.
At the beginning of September Robin Scott introduced the names of the DJs that would grace Radio 1, and many of them would pose for that famous photo on the steps of All Souls in Langham Place. There were about 30 names on the list, about half ex-pirates, the remainder existing BBC staff or contracted broadcasters. Most were on a try-out with many contracts offered for eight weeks rather than the usual thirteen. The station required a large number of jocks partly because it retained the old Light Programme system of having different presenters each day for some shows such as Midday Spin and Late Night Extra.
Former pirates: Tony Blackburn, Pete Brady, Dave Cash, Chris Denning, Kenny Everett, Duncan Johnson, Mike Lennox, John Peel, Keith Skues, Ed Stewart, Mike Ahern, Emperor Rosko, Simon Dee, Mike Raven and Stuart Henry.
Non-pirates: Barry Alldis, Keith Fordyce, Alan Freeman, Tony Hall (presented The Joe Loss Show), Bob Holness, Jack Jackson, Ray Moore, Johnny Moran, Don Moss, Pete Murray, Pete Myers, Denny Piercey, David Rider, David Symonds, Miranda Ward (worked as a reporter on Scene and Heard but never had her own show), Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young.
The bulk of the stripped weekday shows would be looked after by just four DJs: Tony Blackburn at breakfast, Jimmy Young mid-mornings, Pete Brady early afternoons and David Symonds the teatime slot.
In the 16 September 1967 issue of the Radio Times, Robin Scott outlined his plans for Radio 1 and Radio 2.
Meanwhile on the Light Programme Kenny Everett was helping to promote the new service.
So how did it all sound? Well thankfully some off-air recordings exist of the start of both Radio 1 and Radio 2. Staff announcer Paul Hollingdale - having been selected by Robin Scott as "the natural choice" ahead of the usual Saturday morning announcer Bruce Wyndham - kicked things off at 5.30 a.m. for Radio 2. Just before 7 a.m. that subsequently much-played clip of Scott introducing the new service, George Martin's specially commissioned Theme One and then Tony's "and welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1" launched Radio 1. This particular edit was put together by Stuart Busby.
Now you're probably thinking that the BBC Sound Archive kept a copy of the full day's output, but you'd be mistaken. Retained are Roger Moffat's closing announcement for the Light Programme, Paul Hollingdale's Radio 2 opening, all of Tony with his Daily Disc Delivery, the start and some extracts from Leslie Crowther on Junior Choice (clip below), all of Rosko's Midday Spin and the afternoon music magazine show Scene and Heard.
Keith Skues took over Saturday Club from Brian Matthew on Day 1 but all that exists of it is a clip from a home recording (below) as someone obviously started their tape recorder ready for Rosko's show. Keith told me that he'd asked his parents to record his first Radio 1 broadcast but that "they became totally confused at 10 o'clock when Max Jaffa kicked in" (over on Radio 2) so he never did get his recording. He continued: "They could not discover Radio One until I visited them a few weeks later. I think they preferred Max Jaffa to the kind of music I was playing!"
How was the new station received by listeners? It was mixed. "It isn't as good as Radio London or Caroline because the DJs don't sound so spontaneous". "Radio 1 is a pale imitation of the happy-go-lucky independent programmes". "I won't miss the pirates. I think I will go along with Radio 1.""I was very surprised it was so groovy".
As for the press it was a similarly mixed picture. "Good in parts" (NME) "Auntie has lifted her skirt at last - and revealed a pair of amazing adolescent knees." (Daily Express) "The effect is of a waxwork, absolutely lifelike but clearly lifeless." (George Melly in The Observer) "Radio 1 resembled a poor Big L played at half speed." (Disc and Music Echo). "As a network churning out non-stop pop, Radio 1 is bound to be a huge success. After all, the rivals have been, or are about to be, killed off." (The Sunday Times).
In the next Radio 1 at 50 blog post - the tenth anniversary celebrations.
If Radio 1 had a golden era it must surely be the first ten years of its existence. For the first five there was little or no commercial opposition and when ILR stations did roll out there were still vast tracts of the UK that had no choice but to tune in to 247 for their (daytime) pop music fix. All the DJs were household names and many popped up on TV too, were mobbed when they opened a local supermarket or filled the dance floor hosting down at the discotheque.
By 1970 Tony Blackburn's morning show pulled in 4.45 million listeners, the JY Prog on both Radios 1 and 2 5.75m, Radio 1 Club 2.3m, Saturday's Junior Choice 7.9m, Rosko 2.78m, DLT's Sunday show 3.25m and Pick of the Pops 4.65m.
On 30 September 1977 Radio 1 celebrated its 10th anniversary and gained a Radio Times cover. Inside Ray Connolly spoke to a number of the DJs. Here are some extracts from those articles.
Tony Blackburn
His views on popular music and the function of Radio 1 are disarmingly honest. He says: 'To me pop music is just a load of tuneful, memorable music. Every week about 70 new records are released, of which maybe one or two will be hits. You play the hits like mad for six or seven weeks until something else comes along to take their place, and then two or three years later you bring them out again as revived-45s.
I think people take popular music too seriously. At the moment everyone's talking about punk rock. That will probably last for another two weeks and then be replaced by something else. But all the time there are a number of good artists, not affected by the trends, who keep on turning out good records year after year.
I think my job is to be artistic in sound. I think I'm painting a portrait in sound. I'm also trying to entertain the audience. My show is what I call U-rated entertainment ... something which goes into the home and will not offend anyone at all.
If I were in charge of a popular music station I would rotate the same 30 records all day - the way they do at WABC in New York.
Anne Nightingale
Anne Nightingale, as the only woman disc-jockey on national radio, would appear to attract a slightly different kind of audience from her male colleagues. Her programme is all requests and, although she steers well clear of the obvious trap of running a musical problem corner, she does find that many of her requests concern's people's personal lives.
'It's really very difficult not to become involved and distressed sometimes by the letters we get,' she says. For instance, I got a letter from a girl a couple of years ago who was dying of cancer. She wanted a certain record playing on a certain day because she thought it might be the last day she and her husband would have together. So I played the record, although I didn't explain over the air all the details of the request. Then I subsequently found out from the husband's sister that she has, in fact, died the day after my playing that record for her had made her last day very happy.
Many of Anne's listeners are students ('Leeds University is incredible'), but she feels she has to be careful not to give the programme an elitist style in case the young person from the comprehensive will be deterred from writing to her because of his lack of educational qualifications. (The fact that university students even write in to request programmes must surely illustrate just how far pop music and attitudes have changed in the past 15 years.)
Possibly because she has had a great deal of experience in journalism Anne proved to be the most critical of the disc-jockeys I spoke to of the way in which Radio 1 is organised: 'I feel that because the BBC is in this special position of not having to bother about ratings or attracting revenue from advertising it ought to be able to offer the best popular music radio station in the world. But because of things like finance and needle-time it has to compromise, with the result that it really is two separate stations - a Top 40 station during the day and an FM, more serious rock station late at night and over the weekends. What we need are two distinct stations, one for the teeny-boppers and another for people who want to listen to album tracks.
Dave Lee Travis
No one can say that it isn't a responsible job, because it is. You can't go on a national radio station and just go off at any old tangent. Occasionally we get people in to talk about careers for young people, and I'm sure that because it's presented on Radio 1 instead of an another station, then we get the kids to take it more seriously.
But basically my function is to enlighten the listeners by guiding them towards new music which they might not have heard otherwise and, like any other disc-jockey or pop star, I'm there to amuse the listeners and be a friend in the home. You can't really do more because it isn't a political thing and it isn't your place to start discussing politics.
He feels that popular music has changed for the better during the last ten years and is sure that Radio 1 must take some of the credit for that.
'Punk rock is exciting and good for the entire business. Eighty per cent of it may be rubbish, but the other 20 per cent might be good. And I'm sure that out of punk rock will come some good, new and exciting bands.
Although he admits to having a very catholic taste in music, his very favourite piece of music is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
Alan Freeman
Because of his great age (half a century is a great age for someone in the ephemeral world of pop radio!) he has possibly the most objective view of both the public who listen to him and the station itself. He says of his listeners: 'In the past ten years the people who listen to music have grown up very quickly They really listen now. Music isn't just a background thing for them. They listen to it, they eat it, they sleep it and they even dream it. Possibly the music has become too intelligent and it might possibly have lost some of its fun, but there is so much good music around today it's absolutely fascinating.'
His audience is so widespread that he is secretly amazed. Some time ago he went to buy a raincoat and was surprised to hear the shop assistant (a man in his late 50s or early 60s) complimenting him upon his programme. Assuming that he was mistaken for someone else, he smiled and said 'thank you' only to find himself on the end of a very long dissertation on the art of Emmerson, Lake and Palmer. The elderly raincoat salesman was something of an expert on modern. serious rock music.
Freeman sees Radio 1 as a great success story, but recognises that it will forever be the butt of the critics. 'You see, it was the successor to the pirates and so from its inception it was unglamorous because it wasn't illegal. And some of the disc-jockeys who had been pirates lost a bit of their glamour because they suddenly became legal and respectable.'
Kid Jensen
'
Radio 1's function is to reflect the trends and tastes in popular music, and to present new sounds. And I think it has done this very successfully over the last few years. A lot of people choose to ignore a lot of the work that Radio 1 has done in giving air-time to new directions in music.'
He is unhappy with the name 'disc-jockey', because he prefers to see himself as 'a broadcaster - a communicator. and perhaps a friend. I like to have a lot of fun on the radio,' he says. 'And often when I go on live gigs I feel rather like a politician, because, like a politician, a disc-jockey obviously has to be liked by people.'
Elsewhere in the same issue of the Radio Times, Wilfred D'Ath caught up with the Radio 1 Roadshow team in Plymouth.
On the Road
Brian Patten, the Roadshow's producer, joins me for drinks in the hotel lounge. he and the Roadshow team - a disc-jockey, a secretary, three sound engineers and a driver - are suffering a little from road-lag, having traversed Sandown, IOW, Bournemouth, Swanage, Weymouth, Exmouth and Torquay in the past seven days, and with St Austell, Falmouth, St Ives, Newquay, Bude, Ilfracombe, Minehead and Weston-super-Mare still ahead. And this is only the south-west leg of the operation.
We are joined by the week's DJ, Paul Burnett, a charming uxorious man (his wife Nicole and two children are travelling with him) in his middle 30s, surprisingly lacking in confidence for a big-time Radio 1 DJ. Unlike some of the other Roadshow jockeys - Dave Lee Travis, Ed Stewart, Kid Jensen, Noel Edmonds ad Tony Blackburn - who pull enormous audiences on the strength of their TV reputations, Burnett, a shy Geordie whose life's ambition it was to spin discs on Radio 1, is having to work against the grain a bit. One likes him all the more for it.
Next morning I wake at 6.30, breakfast early and make my way to the Roadshow site on the Hoe, right under the lighthouse. But the team has beaten me to it. The Radio 1 caravan is already being unpacked.
The Radio 1 Roadshow caravan is a tiny miracle of audio compactness. In a matter of minutes it unfolds itself into studio console, sound stage, control panel, two deafening loudspeakers, storage space for records and props, and, of course, a direct Post Office line to the Radio 1 continuity suite in London. There is even a huge blue bin for the audience's record dedications, which tend to be written on bananas, vodka bottle and teddy bears.
By 8.30 this miracle has unfolded its brightly painted contents for all to see and a small crowd of (mostly local) teenagers is beginning to gather behind the steel barriers. There is one middle-aged man in a dark suit carrying an enormous transistor radio. A plump girl of 16, wearing a Radio 1 sweatshirt, has followed the show (with her mother!) all the way along the coast from Bournemouth and intends to stay with it till St Ives, at least. It is extremely hard to get her to explain why. She just like the feeling of being at the centre of the channel's ten million or so listeners for the day.
Shortly after ten, Burnett arrives to do his warm-up. he looks distinctly nervous. 'This is the worst part,' he tells me. 'If you don't get them during the warm-up, you don't get them at all.' Patten introduces him on stage and he launches into a routine of discs, corny gags and friendly insults directed at other Radio1 DJs.
The Radio 1 Roadshow slips effortlessly on to the air-waves at 11 am, returning to London at 11.30 am for the national news. Burnett announces this as 1.30 am and spends a little time kicking himself. But it's his worst fluff of the morning. Pop records, pre-selected in London from a short-list of 60, blare out into the sunshine. The audience cheers loudly whenever Plymouth is mentioned. The show comes alive, it seems to me, at 11.15, with a record called Hello Mary Louby Oakie. there is an eruption of tiny pubescent hands clapping in time to it all over Plymouth Hoe. Everyone looks happy. One feels happy oneself. It is difficult to imagine Radio 1 promoting itself more colourfully.
At the back of the magazine Paul Gambaccini wrote about the changes in pop music over the first ten years.
Some pundits wondered if the neglect by Radio 1's daytime programmes could keep punk rock records out of the Top 20, but this kind of speculation is always ill-informed. The notorious playlist of about 40 records which, thanks to the music press, has become the most famous list since the Papal Index, only influences the programmes heard between 7.0 am and 4.30 pm Monday to Friday. Every other Radio 1 show has its own programming philosophy, and very major New Wave record has been aired, although God Save the Queen was quickly banned. Even this case proved the rule, because just as Je T'aime- Moi Non Plus survived a BBC ban and the renunciation of its own record company to become number one in 1969. The Sex Pistols got to number two in some charts despite the BBC and the big retailers who refused to stock the single.
On the other hand, it is by no means certain the Radio 1 airplay guarantees a Top 20 placing. Although he may run me down one night with a very fast-moving sports car for saying this, well over 50 per cent of the singles Noel Edmonds chooses as his Record of the Week never make the 20. If being played every morning for a week to an audience of several millions can't break a record, nothing can, and, in the case of most stiffs, nothing does. The Radio 1 playlist and the Top 20 are two different compilations. One is assembled by daytime producers who feel they know what their audience wants to hear, the other is tabulated by a bureau that adds up what record buyers have purchased.
And finally John Peel wrote about some of the trends in music and, not unexpectedly championed punk.
It is true that no station other than Radio 1 would sanction a programme such as that I introduce each night of the week. On this John Walters, my producer, and I present what we feel to be the very best of rock music, taking in also folk, reggae and whatever else seems relevant. We also play the Yesses and ELPs of this world, although with a disgraceful display of truculence from me, as part of our review function. The commercial stations dependent on wooing the largest (and most prosperous) of audiences have generally restricted their hesitant wanderings outside the Top 40 to picnicking in Framptonland.
John Walters and I, together with the producers responsible for Saturday's Alan Freeman and Kid Jensen programmes, have welcomed punk not only for its vigour and relevance, but because it has emerged as music of character in an increasingly characterless landscape. It does seem however that Radio 1, by generally ignoring even those punk records which have made the BBC charts, has missed a heaven-sent opportunity to re-establish credibility with a considerable potential audience which is growing up to believe that radio has little or no part in its life.
Although the current and undeniable force of punk may soon be blunted by exploitation and misunderstanding, media hostility and misrepresentation, the youthful punk audience believes, as we believed in 1967, that no real divide exists - nor will ever exist - between the musicians and their audience. Given the history of underground music over the past decade they should perhaps be a trifle less optimistic, as success must corrupt their heroes as surely as it corrupted the heroes of the past. In the meantime, it is enough to enjoy the music, reflecting that being condemned in the Sun and The Times alike will serve to strengthen rather than weaken their cause.
To mark the station's decade on air Alan Freeman presented the documentary Radio 1 - The First Ten Years. Written by David Rider - he also wrote an accompanying book - it was broadcast on Sunday 2 October 1977. This is the most complete version I have of that programme splicing together my one off-air recording plus another widely available copy. Even so it runs about six minutes short. (I edited this together back in the Spring. A week or so I found out that BBC Radio 4 Extra are repeating the programme this coming Saturday so I'll upload a full version later though no doubt the repeat will be edited to remove certain DJs)
In the next Radio 1 at 50 blog post the fun-filled 1980s.
A Teddy Bear's Picnic, Action Special trains, Peel in Russia, Bates in the desert, record-breaking discs transported by Eddie Kidd and Bit in the Middle T-Shirts. Yes it was all jinks on 80s Radio 1 and by now all in super stereo too.
These are the pages of Radio 1's 1988 publicity magazine On Show. Within its pages spot a fresh-faced Simon Mayo, a scary-looking Mike Read in drag, a Gary Glitter annual, Bruno looking like he's modelling for the Littlewoods catalogue, a 1FM badge-wearing giant bunny and giant chicken and a Corgi roadshow truck - did you buy one? And before you ask, no I've no idea what happened to Ro Newton either.
In the next and final Radio 1 at 50 blog post - the sound of the station on its 25th birthday.
September 1992 and marking a quarter of a century on air Radio 1 faces the end of an era - though little did we know it at the time. A year later DLT had gone. So had Bates, Bob Harris and Fluff. Beerling was out. Bannister was in. Still, the station was in celebratory mood and it would be the last time it would widely acknowledge its heritage until its 40th some 15 years later.
So how did Radio 1 sound on its 25th birthday on 30 September 1992? Fortunately I recorded some chunks of that day's broadcasts.
The main event was The Birthday Train, yet another excuse to get Simon Bates out of the studio. In this case it was on a train making its way from Edinburgh to London where it was to be officially named by Catherine Zeta Jones no less as 'BBC Radio 1FM'.
Musically it's not a typical day - Cliff Richard and Sandie Shaw are amongst the artists on Bruno Brookes' playlist. From this week Radio 1 was renamed 1FM - a short-lived affectation - and there was the new Closer to the Music jingle package.
I
n this first sequence its Bruno and then Simon Mayo with the Breakfast Crew (Diane Oxberry and Rod McKenzie) with occasional link-ups with Bates. The its over to Simes on the train for part of The Golden Hour. (Does anyone have a copy of Vince Clarke's version of Theme One?) The 1FM Express was 45 minutes late into King's Cross - apparently a careless JCB driver cut through a signalling cable - so Jakki Brambles is late on air broadcasting from the Roof Gardens in Kensington. With Jakki is station controller Johnny Beerling, Tony Hadley, Midge Ure, Smiley Miley, Neil Arthur (ex-Blancmange) and Boy George. (All credit to Peter Powell as Tony, Neil and Boy George all mention him playing their records and encouraging them).
This second sequence comprises the best bits of "the winning team" billed as Steve Wright So Far with some old sketches including Mr Angry from Purley, Laura's Second Love, John Bowles, Gervaise, Llama Man and Linda Lust plus archive clips of guests John Mayor, John Smith, Mel Gibson, Clive Anderson, Sylvester Stallone, Smashie and Nicey, Dame Edna Everage, Spike Milligan, Richard and Judy, Bruce Forsyth, Steven Wright, Phil Cornwell and Danny Baker.
In the third and final sequence from 30 September 1992 its Mark Goodier, first with Mega Hits, "the Top 10 you choose every day" and then after News 92 in comes the Evening Session. The Session includes current chart acts covering some of the biggest number ones of the last 25 years: The Wonder Stuff's version of Slade's Coz I Love You, Kingmaker's Lady Madonna, Blur's Maggie May, Boy George's My Sweet Lord, The Frank and Walters cover of I'm a Believer and, bizarely, Ned's Atomic Dustbin with Charlene's I've Never Been to Me. There's also The Mission with their version of Atomic, Billy Bragg with When Will I See You Again?, Carter USM's cover of Another Brick in the Wall, The Farm with Don't You Want Me? and Manic Street Preachers with Suicide is Painless. All these tracks were later released on the NME album Ruby Trax.
For whatever reason I didn't record the Man Ezeke so we move onto "the man with musical plan" Nicholas Andrew Argyle Campbell. Nicky plays a selection of number hit singles and album tracks from 1967 onwards - my recording ends in 1977 with Way Down. Finally, to round off the day part of Bob Harris's classy overnight show.
