Jon Holmes and team on Talk Radio's afternoon show dissecting the news in haiku and W.H. Auden poetry. Plus loads of topical Christmas cracker jokes from newsreader Victoria Bourne, old Now Show mate Pippa Evans, celebrity-spotting, a work experience pundit, the diversity paper review and a chance to win some meat.
From the radio dynasty that is the Foster family here's John on BBC Tees mid-mornings from this day last year. The self-confessed radio anorak even name checks the old BBC HQ at Savoy Hill and can't resist a trip down nostalgia lane towards the end of the show.
In 2017 John appeared infrequently on Tees and in November announced that he was leaving the station for good due to the long commute.
Welcome to Just a Minute! For five decades it's been a case of speaking without hesitation, deviation or repetition. A simple yet frustratingly difficult task that has led to some great comic moments over the 900+ editions that have been heard since Just a Minute first appeared on 22 December 1967.
The programme, devised by Ian Messiter, had had an earlier 1950s radio incarnation under the title One Minute, Please with Roy Plomley, and later Michael Jackson, chairing, though here it was a team game rather than pitting four individual players against each other.
In 1967 Nicholas Parsons was enjoying radio success in the topical satirical comedy series Listen to this Space. Seeking some new challenges he spoke to Ian Messiter who suggested Just a Minute. Getting the green light for the pilot producer David Hatch was called in - David would guide and help shape the programme for its first decade or so - and with Nicholas as one of the panellists it was Jimmy Edwards who was lined up as chairman. In the event Edwards couldn't commit to the show so Nicholas Parsons reluctantly agreed to step in as master of ceremonies, a role he's maintained, apart from some role swapping in early editions, ever since.
The pilot episode was recorded on 16 July 1967 and eventually scheduled as the first edition of a new series to start on Radio 4 that December, thus becoming the newly re-badged network's first bona fide hit.
Show producer David Hatch writes a humourous introduction for the Radio Times of 22 December 1967
Here is that first outing of Just a Minute. The panel consists of two participants who would become regular players and two who never appeared again. Chef, restaurateur, writer and nightclub owner Clement Freud would eventually clock up 544 editions between 1967 and 2009. His game play tactics were running off lists to fill the time, no mean feat without pausing, and buzzing in with a challenge with a second or two to go, though players couldn't see the clock. With him was actor Derek Nimmo (309 editions until 1999) whose regular foreign travels gave him plenty of material to talk for a minute. The third member was actress Beryl Reid who struggled with the concept, proving that actors used to performing from a script don't always make the best exponents of Just a Minute. I've always wondered who exactly the fourth panellists was as I've never heard the name before. In fact it turns out that Wilma Ewart was one of Nicholas's neighbours who had no experience of performing but who he found "witty and entertaining". Wilma makes a decent job on the show but was never asked back as her and husband had to move back to the USA.
The game as played in the early series is not what we now know. The rules took some time to bed in; repetition was counted as repetition of an idea as well as words. For a while you couldn't even repeat the words in the subject title and there were penalty rounds such as speaking on a subject without using certain words but these proved inhibiting.
The third major player of the game joined for the second series when Derek Nimmo couldn't make the recordings due to filming commitments. Producer David Hatch had been convinced of Kenneth Williams' suitability for the game after seeing him on the panel of BBC TV's Call My Bluff and he asked Williams to initially do six programmes. According to Kenneth's diary it seems it was a somewhat reluctant agreement: "unfortunately it means working with that Parsons fellow, but I said yes, 'cos it will be a nice fill-in". His attitude to the chairman had mellowed somewhat by the time of the recording and it also touches on the fact that Hatch would have to had to continually keep Kenneth happy and praise his contributions: "... when we came to the performance I just about managed and scraped through. But Nicholas was a great help and so was Clemet Freud. David Hatch was very nice to me before (when I was actually v. nervous) and afterwards. I like him very much - always have actually".
Parsons, Williams, Nimmo and Jones. Radio Times 7 February 1985
With Williams on board the show was increasingly played for laughs rather than just been a rules-based parlour game. His flamboyant style, his appeals to the audience, those elongated vowels and then rattling along at top speed became his game trademarks. Williams even unwittingly introduced some catchphrases that are remembered to this day and only recently were referenced by Paul Merton and Sheila Hancock: "I'm a cult figure". "I haven't come all the way from Great Portland Street...". "It's a disgrace" when, unreasonably to him, challenged or losing an appeal. And "we shouldn't have women on this show", initially aimed at the 'lovely Aimi Macdonald'. Kenny appeared on 346 radio episodes between 1968 and 1988.
In 1992 the programme celebrated its silver anniversary with a 2-part retrospective, Silver Minutes. This is part one from 20 July 1992 (though this is the commercially released version).
The fourth member of what was seen for many years as the 'classic line-up' - was Peter Jones, who joined the show in 1971, again to fill a gap left by a busy Nimmo. He had a more laid back approach to the game and was often willing to sit back whilst the other fought it out only to buzz in with a very funny or acerbic comment. His talks always seemed to start with "well..." I recall. Peter made 326 appearances until 2000.
That so-called classic line-up appeared together in just 38 episodes so there were always guest slots to fill. Some became semi-regulars and the longest-serving of these is Sheila Hancock who, like Nicholas Parsons spans the five decades, appearing on the second edition of the first series in December 1967 through to a couple of shows in the latest series, the 79th, this autumn.
This is the second of the Silver Minutes programmes originally broadcast on 27 July 1992.
With the gradual loss of Kenneth Williams in 1988 there was a vacancy for a regular player. Comedian Paul Merton had been an avid fan of the show for years and had recorded and constantly replayed episodes to himself. Convinced that he could contribute to the show he wrote to the then producer Edward Taylor. At the same time he'd appeared as a panellist on the TV game show Scruples on which Nick also appeared (BBC Genome would suggest this was the 30 October 1988 edition) and he mentioned how much he loved Just a Minute. Paul's flights of surrealist fancy and running gags opened up the show and in recent years, alongside that other semi-regular Gyles Brandreth, it has tended to be comedians on the panel.
The programmes longevity can be put down to the fact that one, it is a simple concept and two, that it has slowly evolved. Nicholas Parsons, with a long history in the business has, to be fair, be very astute in recognising the fact that the show needed to change to survive. Indeed in his book on the programme he is very honest about the run-ins he had with Clement Freud who still wanted to play strictly by the rules as first laid down by Ian Messiter. Parsons recognised that much of the laughter comes from the challenges, whether valid or not.
The first series of Just a Minute that I committed to tape was the 14th that aired between December 1979 and March 1980. Playing alongside Williams, Nimmo, Jones and Freud were Sheila Hancock, Aimi Macdonald, Tim Rice, Patrick Moore, Lance Percival, Barry Cryer and John Junkin. Making their only appearances in the programme's history were Peter Cook, Bob Monkhouse, Rob Buckman and Kenny Everett.
This is the first episode from series 14 from 11 December 1979. All subsequent editions from the series will appear on my YouTube channel.
Of course the real star, and the one constant, throughout the run has been Nicholas Parsons, still sounding as strong, if a little less posh, as he did in 1967. "I enjoy the position of chairman so much", he says in next week's issue of the Radio Times. "It's the greatest effort of concentration of any job I have. I'm listening intently and can see the way people's minds are working when they have a subject. We, as professionals, make it look easy and sound fun, but it's an incredibly difficult game." I can't do justice to the programme's 50 year history in such a short post so I can direct you to the superb Just a Minute website. Nicholas Parson's own history of the programme Welcome to Just a Minute was first published in 2014 and is available in hardback, paperback and Kindle editions
I've not heard JK and Joel since their days on Radio 1, apart from once catching Joel on Yorkshire Coast Radio. So on this day last year I dipped into Heart London's drivetime show with Jason King and Lucy Horobin. This was a very slick affair: no talkie bit seemed to last more than a minute, it was mostly two or three record segues and editing out the ads, news and all but one traffic report I've reduced a three-hour show to just 18 minutes! Tomorrow Joel & Lorna.
Great fun with Joel Ross and Lorna Bancroft on Heart North West a year ago today. On this show Lorna's feeling under the weather, producer Jordan Hemingway has been on a date but Joel has some upsetting news about his cat. Tomorrow the Dark Lord.
Little did I know that when I recorded this last year that Alex's days on Radio 2 were numbered, with just another few weeks of overnights before an automated Radio 2 Playlistkicked in. On this Best Time of the Day show the Virtual Musical Map concentrates on High Wycombe.
Alex can now be heard presenting the weekday breakfast show on BBC WM 95.6
It's Father Christmas with a stetson as Northern Ireland's Downtown Country airs a year ago on a Sunday night. To my knowledge Trevor Campbell, aka Big T, is the only DJ from the original 19 ILR stations that is still working on the same station some four decades later. This is the first hour of the show in full.
To South Wales for the Capital Breakfast show from a trio rather than the usual duo of Matt Lissack, Polly James and Geraint Hardy. Goodness me, all this talk of Christmas parties, Snapchat and members of the Kardashian clan makes me feel old. This is how it all sounded a year ago today.
On this date last year the day's news was dominated by the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. But the story I've selected from Adrian's 5 live Dailycovers the events from five decades ago, the sinking of the TSMS Lakonia (above) which saw the greatest loss of British lives on a cruise ship since the Titanic. Eyewitness stories mixed with some contemporary archive material create a compelling and moving story of the events of December 1963.
It was a special edition of Gillham's Gold on BBC Radio Jersey this time last year as Tony Gillham celebrated 50 years on the radio. Remarkably Tony had kept the tape of his first appearance behind the microphone, aged just 15, on hospital radio in Colchester.
When I recorded the BBC local radio evening show on this day last year it had already been announced that Mark Forrest was stepping down, to be replaced in February 2017 by Georgey Spanswick. Since then the DG has recently announced that the networked evening show will be dropped from next summer and local shows will return.
Little has been heard of Mark since he left the show though I did catch him read the news on Radio 3 in September.
The Sky EPG had this to say about the last hour of Shaun Keaveny's BBC 6 Music show on this day last year: "Style icon and fan of the show Kate Moss co-presents her very own 'Kate Moss Hour' and chooses some brilliant Christmas tunes. She also tells the 'dancing with James Brown' story."
A Christmas treat from Classic FM from this day last year with a retelling of the Raymond Briggs story narrated by Aled Jones with music written by Howard Blake.
This year sees the 50th anniversary of that radio perennial Just a Minute. There are some special programmes this month marking the golden anniversary but on Christmas Day last year Radio 4 broadcast this extended version of the game with some added, if rather flimsy, panto elements. Joining the regulars of Paul Merton, Sheila Hancock and Gyles Brandreth are Tony Hawks, Tom Allen, Rufus Hound, Pippa Evans and Julian Clary. As ever the chairman is Nicholas Parsons.
The format reverts to a team effort, even if it does sometimes get undermined, a throwback to Just a Minute's predecessor One Minute, Please and there's a lovely nod to the days of Kenneth Williams.
On 14 October 1977 Bing Crosby had just completed a round of golf. Par for the course, if you'll pardon the pun, as most days the old crooner could be found hitting it 'straight down the middle'. After all this was the man that had invested in early tape recoding technology to allow his hugely popular radio shows to be pre-recorded so he could spend more time out on the course.
Having played the 18th hole at Spain's La Morajela course Bing was heading back to the clubhouse when he was felled by a massive heart attack. It was a shocking, if fitting, end to the life of one of the century's most popular singers whose career had spanned the jazz age to the arrival of rock 'n' roll and beyond.
Just four days earlier he'd sung in what was to be his last public performance in concert at the Brighton Centre at the end of a short UK tour. The following day, Tuesday 11 October 1977, he was at the BBC's studios in Maida Vale to record some songs with the Gordon Rose Orchestra for a programme introduced by Alan Dell. That session was Bing's last recording.
The songs committed to tape that October were finally broadcast on Tuesday 27 December on BBC Radio 2 in an hour long special that also included songs, recorded at a separate session, by Rosemary Clooney who'd accompanied Bing on the UK tour.
Here's the full broadcast of Bing's radio swansong as heard on Radio 2 that holiday Tuesday complete with continuity announcer David Bellan. This isn't my recording and I don't recall how I came to be in possession of it, so I can't pass on the usual thanks. I've prefaced the show with the voice of Gordon Rose explaining how the BBC recording session came about, this extract is taken from the recent Bing Crosby in The Road to Rock and Roll broadcast earlier this year.
A Happy New Year to all the readers and supporters of the blog. As a special treat I'm taking you back exactly forty years and the overnight show on BBC Radio 2, seeing out 1977 and welcoming in 1978.
This was the third year that both Ray Moore and Jean Challis had hosted an all-night late show at a time when overnight broadcasting on the station was restricted to New Year's Eve, occasional overseas sports coverage and US elections. In 1977 Ray was coming to the end of a stint presenting the weekend late shows before moving into the early show seat vacated by his mate Colin Berry. Jean Challis was usually to be found linking families around the world on Family Favourites.
Live from Broadcasting House the programme also included a visit to the Hilton Hotel to hear Joe Loss and his Orchestra with Ray making the dash over to the hotel to introduce proceedings. Sadly that bit of the show is missing. But there's still just over an hour's worth of audio to savour.
Musically speaking we're still in the period when needletime restrictions means that records - from the likes of Roger Whittaker and Peters and Lee so nothing too raucous for a party night - were interspersed with the BBC Radio Orchestra, the BBC Big Band and the Don Lusher Quartet.
Such was the rarity of overnights on Radio 2 that Jean mentions that listeners to BBC Radio Oxford have just joined and there's a hello to BBC staff working over in the Bush House newsroom.
John Ireland's illustration for the Radio Times. Whilst Ray and Jean were on Radio 2 over on Radio 1 it was Pop Into 78 with Kid Jensen and Peter Powell
This recording comes from two sources. The bulk of it was recorded by Martin Ward, running from about 12.50 am to 1.50 am on New Year's Day 1978, so all the midnight shenanigans aren't here. Jimmy Kingsbury is heard reading the 1.00 am news bulletin. As Presentation Editor Jimmy often took these unsocial hours shifts and he would also have read the 12.33 am shipping forecast on 1500m long wave - not heard on this VHF recording.
Topping and tailing Martin's recording is my own off-air snippets of the show opening and then winding-up at 6.30 am.
The original All-Night Late Show ran at just under seven-and-a-half hours kicking off after 11.00 pm news read by Paddy O'Byrne and Sports Desk with Tony Adamson. Sarah Kennedy was on continuity duty that evening.
So here's a taste of how Radio 2 sounded four decades ago. Cue Count Basie with Nice 'n' Easy.
In January 2013 I wrote aboutSports Report and Saturday afternoon sports coverage. This month we've now hit the 70th anniversary of that venerable radio institution which has prompted me to have a dig around in my archive and uncover past anniversary editions.
I've previously posted the 40th anniversary edition of Sport on 2 with Peter Jones but this is now uploaded to YouTube.
For the 50th anniversary there was a special edition of Sport on Five with Ian Payne. It seems I only kept the Sports Reportsequence which was pretty much business as usual though there are some reminiscences from Cliff Morgan towards the end.
On 3 January 2008 Mark Saggers presented a special edition of 5 live Sport to mark the 60th. With Mark thoughout the programme are Des Lynam and the late James Alexander Gordon. You'll also hear Mark Pougatch, Mark Clemmit, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Jenny Pitman, Ian Payne, Cornelious Lysaght, Sir Henry Cooper, Sheena Mackay, Pat Nevin, Pat Murphy, Stuart Hall, Tony Adamson, Eleanor Oldroyd, Stuart Jones, Jimmy Armfield and Mike Ingham.
As for the 70th anniversary last Friday (5th) on 5 live Daily Chris Warburton gathered together some familiar voices, speaking to Mark Pougatch, John Murray, Jim Rosenthal, and producer Mark Williams.
The recording then shifts to Saturday (6th) with the start of 5 live Sport on FA Cup Third Round day presented by Mark Chapman and then Sports Report, just a 30-minute edition to allow for commentary on the evening match between Norwich City and Chelsea.
This post should be subtitled The Sound of Silence. When this week's Jamie Cullum's Radio 2 show was unexpectedly truncated - a beginning and an end but seemingly the middle section had dropped down a digital black hole - and the 'emergency tape' kicked in it didn't go unnoticed; social media and the fact that it's the biggest station in the UK saw to that. [The full pre-recorded version of Jamie's show is no online]
The use of playout automation and voice-tracking have long been a feature of radio station output and, for the most part, work seamlessly so listeners shouldn't be able to spot the difference. But when Radio 2 adopted the VCS Autoplayer in September 2012 for a while it was a case of 'mind the gap'.
Radio 2 was aiming to make efficiencies and the use of automation was noticeable in the evening and weekend programming when, one assumes, technical staff were thin on the ground. Most of the early teething problems involved the junctions out of news bulletins with the next programmes fired off at exactly three minutes past the hour cutting off newsreaders in their prime.
The network's problems were compounded when in January 2013 two programmes played out at the same time with Michael Ball and Russell Davies's show both simultaneously competing for about 15 minutes of airtime. Later that year, in October, we got two Bob Harris's for the price of one when the end of BST seemed to send the system haywire.
Here are a few example I collected at the time.
Note the jokey but rather pointed comment from Richard Allinson "normal service ... well that went out the window ages ago" was made around the time in 2012 when the old team of newsreaders was phased out and the automation came in.
The news at 1:10 is very odd. This is Susan Rae, on 23 September 2012, presumably reading the 2-minute 11.00 pm Radio 4 bulletin but on Radio 2! Hence we get a full minute of silence before the trailer kicks in.
At 6:19 we get part of the infamous Bob Harris show from 27 October 2013 with two parts being played out at once.
At 8:24 it's the Ball/Davies cock-up.
And finally at 12:49 from 22 June 2015 Jeremy Vine signing off and Steve Wright loving a technical fault.
Needless to say Feedbackpicked up on all the drop -outs. On 28 September 2012 they dealt with one minute silence the previous Sunday night which was blamed on an "internal broadcast circuit" plus other losses of lines on Any Questions? and Today. The 1 February 2013 edition called Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan to account who puts it down to 'human error'.
For four decades Ed Doolan was one of the broadcasters that defined radio for the listening folk of the West Midlands. An intelligent interviewer, a champion of consumer affairs and with one of the biggest contact books in the business Aussie-born Ed became an honorary Brummie on BRMB and BBC WM. His death was announced today.
Born in 1941 in Sydney, Australia Ed had always wanted to be a broadcaster but his parents had other ideas and were keen for him to have a career in teaching. But that didn't stop him hanging around the Macquarie Broadcasting audience shows in the 50s and 60s to get his radio fix.
Like many fellow young Australians he chose to pursue his career in the UK and in 1966 he became a teacher in Edinburgh and then London. By 1970 he'd moved across to West Germany as part of an exchange programme and dipped his toe into radio at Deutsche Welle. "Some friends who had contacts in Cologne told me they needed an English voice on German Overseas Radio. Mine was near enough". His first broadcast was in September of that year on a 15-minute documentary called Hitch-Hikers in Germany. He also presented Afrika-Englisch Current Affairs for Deutsche Welle, Deutschlandfunk English transmissions to Britain and Top Marks School Quiz for the BFBS.
Ed moved back to the UK and joined the newly launched BRMB station in Birmingham. Initially presenting the weekday afternoon show he later moved into mid-mornings, a timeslot that later would become his natural home for many years. He was keen to hone his craft and took to recording his own shows. "Every night when I go home I listen to every link," he said in 1975. If something had gone wrong "I will sit and listen to it two or three times until I have put my finger on where it went wrong". Incidentally Ed was a keen home taper and his archive of TV and radio shows have since helped fill some of the gaps left after broadcasters junked their tapes.
In September 1982 he jumped over to the opposition at BBC WM presenting a show between 12 noon and 1 pm, later on the breakfast show and then a mid-morning show. As well as covering the news stories of the day he would interview many politicians and celebrities - some of those celebrity set piece interviews have enjoyed repeats on Radio 7/4 Extra. By 1988 his programme started to champion the cause of his listeners and he was adept at challenging local government and companies to sort out injustices and shoddy service. His broadcasting style was, albeit briefly, recognised by network radio when he sat in for Jimmy Young on Radio 2 in 1995 and 1996 but he remained loyal to his West Midlands audience. He was awarded an MBE for his services to broadcasting and charity, won a Gillard Award and was inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame.
In 2011 he stepped down from his daily show, Lunch with Ed Doolan - at the time he was also presenting a Sunday afternoon show, Ed Doolan: Other Side of - and just retained the Friday show and a new 3-hour Sunday morning show. In 2015 he announced that he been coping with dementia for a couple of years but he continued to record introductions for a one-hour Sunday show featuring highlights from his big name interviews and radio archive, with the most recent show going out just a few days ago. This tribute programme aired in 2015 and is presented by Jasper Carrott.
Following the launch of the first three home radio stations in November 1967 - Leicester, Sheffield and Merseyside - the rollout of the experimental BBC local radio stations resumed on 31 January 1968 in Nottingham.
The BBC previously had a presence in the city in the early 1920s when relay station 5NG based in Bridlesmith Gate had contributed a small number of programmes to supplement the service from 2LO. The post-war Home Service also had an East Midlands Representative housed in the Bentinck Buildings in Wheeler Gate, later Wilson House on Derby Road, who was expected to contribute reports and programmes for the Midlands Region. Throughout the 50s and 60s that representative was Gerald Nethercot, and so he was ideally placed to be appointed as the first Station Manager for Radio Nottingham.
The new station was housed in studios at the back of York House on Mansfield Road transmitting a VHF only service on 94.8Mhz. Gerald Nethercot had gathered together a dozen staff to run the station and after some test transmission it was formally opened on the evening, at 6.00 pm, rather an odd time for a station launch. Programme organiser Robert McLeish introduced the chimes of Little John from the Council House, Nethercot outlined the plans for the new station and there were short speeches from the Lord Mayor and the Postmaster General Edward Short. That evening's entertainment consisted of Wednesday Club, which was an early fixture in the schedules billed as "of special interest to the blind" and presented by George Miller. This was followed by the documentary, Snot's Estate, a light-hearted look at the history of the city written by Emrys Bryson of the Evening Post and produced by Tony Church.
Here's how the Radio Nottingham schedules looked (above) after nearly a year of operation, with the Radio Times listings for the week commencing 11 January 1969. Typically of the early local stations though they broadcast throughout the day, from just before 7.00 am to around 8.00 pm the actual number of hours on air totalled about seven, with various gaps during the day given over to network programmes which, according to the blurb at the top of the page, were taken from Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4. So in between the local programmes you'd have a burst of the JY Prog and The World at One, though I'm not aware they ever switched over to Radio 3.
This is how BBC Radio Nottingham sounded in its early days together with some later clips from the early 70s:
There was no breakfast show as such and the early morning schedule had the look of the old Home Service about it with short programmes billed as Town Crier and Morning Town Ride interspersed with the national news, presumably Radio 4's 10-minute bulletins. No presenters are listed but they will have been drawn from the team of presenter/producers who, when the station launched, were Tony Church, Tony Cook (ex. Anglia TV and not to be confused with the Radio Trent/Centre Radio news presenter namesake), Keith Salmon, Colin Walters and Bob Brookes.
The staffing structure in 1968. From The First Ten Years by Trevor Dann
With the introduction of the BBC local stations listeners were finally given the public forum to question those in power, often this was their local councillors, and to seek consumer advice. Two such Nottingham programmes were What Are They Up to Now?and You and the Law. Tony Church presented the first of these programmes and its generally acknowledged that this was the earliest example of a radio phone-in on UK radio.
London-born Tony Church had ambitions to work in the film industry and had studied at the National Film School and freelanced in sound and lighting jobs before he was called up for his National Service. Moving to Nottingham in 1950 he worked at the Playhouse for 13 years, leaving following an artistic disagreement with director Tyrone Guthrie. Moving over to the BBC Midlands Region as a producer he joined Radio Nottingham from the start and stayed with the station for 20 years. Tony died in 2006 aged 75.
Page from the 1978 BBC booklet Serving Neighbourhood and Nation
For many years Keith Salmon was the managing editor at BBC Radio Norfolk until his retirement in 1995. He'd joined the BBC in 1961 as a studio manager and in the mid-60s was briefly attached the Radiophonic Workshop (later Radio Nottingham would use Radiophonic-produced themes and jingles including a main logo composed by John Baker). Keith was at Nottingham for a couple of years before moving to Radio Oxford to help launch that station. In 1982 he became the manager at Radio Norfolk.
Colin Walters, listed here as presenting Trademark Nottingham and Sports Preview, is best known as the MD at Manchester's Piccadilly Radio from 1974 to 1991. He'd studied at Nottingham University in the early 60s before a brief spell as a news reporter on the Loughborough Monitor and as Deputy Editor at the Fleet Street Letter. At Radio Nottingham Colin progressed from presenter/producer to deputy manager in 1970 and then manager by 1972. With the arrival of commercial radio he successfully applied for the role of programme controller at Piccadilly. After leaving Manchester he was a consultant and advised on several commercial radio bids. Now retired and living in France.
Radio Nottingham's answer to Gus Honeybun was Squeg, a squirrel who supposedly lived on
top of the transmitter at Colwick. Invented by Tony Church, here he's pictured with Gina Madgett.
Presenting Memories are Made of This and All Peoplewas programme organiser Robert McLeish. He'd joined the BBC in 1956 working in the Control Room at 200 Oxford Street. He became a studio manager at Bush House, was attached to Bristol and then worked on music shows on the Light Programme. He took a two-year secondment to the Solomon Islands to run the broadcasting service there. Back in the UK he joined Radio Nottingham and then became head of the local radio Training Unit at the Langham. His final job was as Head of Corporate Management Training before he retired in 1989. He is the author of the book Radio Production, now in its sixth edition.
At this time the station didn't have its own newsroom and, in common with the other fledging BBC local stations, news bulletins were supplied by local news agency. One of those writing the bulletins was John Hobson (pictured above) over at Bradshaw's News Agency. "Our office was across the city, and the one who drew the short straw had a fifteen-minute walk to the studio carrying the bulletin in a big brown envelope". John had started his journalistic career at Ilkeston Advertiser and then the Ilkeston Pioneer, Wolverhampton Star, Nottingham Evening News and then the Nottingham Post. In 1970 he was asked to form the first BBC local radio station newsroom at Nottingham where he became the news editor. John left the BBC in 1986 to take over the Leicester News Service and later worked as a freelance reporter and media trainer. He died in 2014 aged 76.
Other names listed in the 1968 schedule include Bob Brookes who'd joined from the Nottingham University's Adult Education Department and would be the main producer in charge of the station's education output and Kit Poxon, previously at Nottingham County Council and who'd later work at Radio Derby.
Providing the Saturday afternoon sports reporting, though not listed here, is likely to have been Colin Slater. A local newspaper journalist he'd joined the station in the summer of 1968 and continued as a match commentator until the end of the 2016/17 season.
One name I can't overlook is the man would come to define the station during his 28 years at Radio Nottingham. Dennis McCarthy came from an acting family and had ended up in Nottingham when he was evacuated during World War Two. He was a movie collector and a dog breeder of some renown, and it was because of this that he got the chance to make his first broadcast with a report about Crufts within a few days of the station going on air. On the back of his performance he was offered some other freelance report work and eventually some programmes, one of the earliest I can trace is a 15-minute Mapperley Hospital Show. By 1969 he'd got his own show of music and interviews, Date with Dennis which ran for a number of years and he also presented Take the Lead billed as 'local dog news and the breed of the week'. A regular Sunday show followed - in which he managed to rope in his own family, son Owen (aka Digger) and daughter Tara - and by 1974 he'd gained what would be his regular weekday slot, Afternoon Special, which ran until his untimely death in 1996.
The Radio Nottingham team will be celebrating 50 years on air this Wednesday and Trevor Dann has compiled a retrospective of the station's history called On the Street Where You Live Presented by Simon Mayo it was broadcast yesterday and will be availlable to listen again for 29 days.
