You and Yours

Its amazing how under-represented some programmes are in the BBC’s Sound Archives. For instance Housewives’ Choice ran on the Light Programme from 1946 to 1967 but the only clips they seem to have are about a minute of Kenneth Horne and even less of George Elrick.

So it’s often those home taped recordings that help fill the gaps in the official archive, a 40-minute excerpt from a 1950s edition of Housewives’ Choice presented by Bob Danvers-Walker can be found on the internet.

I mention this because another long running programme, this time Radio 4’s daily consumer magazine programme You and Yours celebrated its 40^th anniversary last year. The Radio 4 blog includes some early examples of the show (see links below). But apparently only five editions from the whole of the programme’s first decade exist.

The head of the archive explained that “space was limited back then and programme makers didn’t keep a comprehensive record of what went out on air. The idea was more to select programmes, extracts of programmes, and sometimes commission new recordings itself that were either of clear historical value or would be of likely repeat or re-use to future programme makers. So highly topical content of the sort on You and Yours although a precious record of social history now, may well have been seen by producers as ephemeral”.

My You and Yours archive is even smaller. Nothing from the 1970s and from 1980 just this 30-second clip with Bill Breckon and Nancy Wise:

However, I’ve also found this complete edition from 9 May 1983. The programme was now presented by Pattie Coldwell (ex Nationwide and later to present Open Air who died at the age of 50 in 2002) and Paul Heiney (ex Radio Humberside and one of Esther’s boys on That’s Life, currently on ITV1's Countrywise). The programme includes reports on money lending, women’s self-defence and talking bus stops.

Radio 4 Blog - Opening up the You and Yours archive

Radio 4 Blog - More from the You and Yours archive