Childhood
heroes come in various shapes and guises. For a generation of children of the
60s chances are it’s the indestructible defeater of the Mysterons, one Captain
Scarlet.
Like many
boys of my age I loved all those puppet series: Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90.
Though filmed in glorious ‘Supermarionation’ we saw them in good old black and
white. I remember every Friday walking round to the newsagents in Brough with
my Dad - he was going for that night’s copy of the Hull Daily Mail - to pick up the latest issue of the TV21 comic. I’d pour over those blowout
diagrams of the gadgets and vehicles. Shame
I didn’t keep them, they’d be worth a fortune on eBay.
Anderson’s
series led to the creation of a whole set of Corgi toys. I had the blue
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (inexplicably the driver sat facing backwards and
drove with the aid of a monitor).But mostly I yearned to have Joe 90s attache
case, I never did get it.
As a tribute
to Gerry Anderson, who died earlier this week I’ve dug out this edition of the
Radio 4 arts programme Kaleidoscope
from 1987. Broadcast at the time of Anderson working on a new project, Space Police, its presented by
Christopher Cook. You’ll hear not only
Gerry Anderson himself but also Lew Grade, special effects supremo Derek
Meddings, puppeteer Christine Glanville and actors Francis Matthews, Ed Bishop
and David Graham.
Kaleidoscope: FAB was broadcast on
Wednesday 23 December 1987.
It’s
Christmas Day! My final advent radio offering is Classic FM’s take on the
Medieval mystery plays. The Christmas
Mysteries imagines how they might have been performed by the craft guild in
15th century Yorkshire. The play is written by David Spicer and stars Jack
Shepherd, Mark Benton, Jasper Britton, Catherine Cusack and Simon Greenall. It
was directed by Frank Stirling for Unique Productions.
That’s all
from Random Radio Jottings for 2012. A Happy Christmas to those of you who
follow the blog. I’m back in 2013 starting with a tribute to Sports Report.
Reviewing
the major events of 2011 are Richard Bacon with Clive Anderson, Jon Holmes and
Katie Hopkins.The show may have been
the Radio Times pick of the day the year before but Richard hasn’t got the gig
at all this year: the Review of the Year
on 27 December is with Tony Livesey and Stephen Nolan.Warning: this recording contains Jimmy
Savile!
Holding
court everyday on Talksport are Richard Keys and Andy Gray, who moved to the
station from Sky Sports in February 2011. A year ago today there was no Andy,
who had “business elsewhere ” so joining Richard is Brian Moore. The guest is
former Coventry City and Liverpool player Gary Gillespie.
There’s a major
shake-up of BBC Local Radio just around the corner in January but the keystone
of all the stations, remaining unchanged, are their Breakfast Show programmes.
Every morning in Shropshire it’s in the hands of Eric Smith and Clare Ashford.
Eric is another
name I know from Radio Humberside, and you’ll have also heard him on Radio
Sheffield and Radio Aire.
A delightful
mix of self-effacing humour, music and a paean to the joys of radio John
Osborne’s John Peel’s Shed had been
touring the country when it was recorded for this Radio 4 broadcast. The spark for the show was an eclectic box of
records that John won in a Peel slogan competition: “records you want to hear,
played by a man who wants to hear them”. John Peel's Shed_211211
Memories
from 70 years ago: Petula Clark’s radio debut, Wilfred Pickles singing the
Internationale, Dimbleby over Berlin, Ack
Ack Beer Beer, Victor Sylvester’s Dance
Club and Churchill announcing the end of the beginning.
Christmas 42 was a BBC
Radio 4 programme presented by Christopher Andrew was first broadcast on Saturday
25 December 1982.
A real end
of term feeling to this award-winning show as Ditchy & Salty prepare to
leave Real Radio in the North West – a decision that angered many listeners. In
the studio alongside David Ditchfield and Paul Salt is Debbie Ousbey (who
continued at Real for a couple of months or so before she was also dropped).
Playing in their ‘best bits’ with clips of Peter Kay and Anne Kirkbride.
Time for
some jazz. As Sarah Ward says here’s music in a “cool and mellow” mood. So
unwind with this recording of part of Dinner
Jazz from 19 December 2011.
In 2011
there was a Christmas Day chart so strictly the Christmas No 1 wasn’t
announced, on the radio at least, until just before 7 pm on the big day. The
question was whether the X Factor winner was going to make No. 1, or would
there be a concerted attempt to back an outsider. In fact the number one hit
announced on the 18th differed depending on your source. The Official Chart with Reggie Yates on Radio 1 did indeed see
Little Mix make the top spot.
Over on commercial radio the Vodafone Big Top 40 with Rich Clarke and Kat Shoob had the Military
Wives Choir. In the event it was the
Choir that made the official Christmas number one. Had the X Factor winning
song been released a week too early?
As you’ll
hear the X Factor acts (Rebecca Ferguson, One Direction, The Finalists, Leona
Lewis and Olly Murs) and some old seasonal favourites made up the bulk of the
chart.
With Mike
Harding leaving Radio 2’s folk show this month I’m posting this brief history
of folk programming on the network. Admittedly Mike has not chosen to leave but
with the changing of the guard after nearly 15 years I recall the names of
Wally Whyton, Tony Capstick and Jim Lloyd.
When Radio 2
started in September 1967 the folk show, broadcast on that opening Saturday,
was billed as a Radio 1 production, but simulcast on Radio 2. In fact it was
not purely folk, but an hour-long mix of country and folk under the title that
made this abundantly clear: Country Meets
Folk. Hosting proceedings was Wally Whyton. At the time Wally was already
known as a skiffle player and folk singer and to a generation of children,
myself included, as appearing with the puppets Olly Beak and Fred Barker on
ITV’s The Five o’Clock Club. He’d already broadcast on the Light Programme
in Skiffle Club, Folk Room and It’s One
o’Clock.
Country Meets Folk was an old Light
Programme show, first aired in July 1967 in the dying days of the old network.
It was a replacement for the half hour A
Cellar Full of Folk, both programmes being produced by Ian Grant.Alongside Wally was Jim Lloyd (more formally
billed in the Light Programme shows as James Lloyd) who was tasked with
presenting the folk and country news and then later also looking after the new
record release reviews.
In the
rather confusing way that programmes were scheduled back then by early 1969 Country Meets Folk had moved to an
earlier slot on Saturday afternoon on Radio 1 only, but months later shifted
across to become a Radio 2 show, this time simulcast on Radio 1. The other
occasional hosts were Malcolm Price and Johnny Silvo.
Throughout
most of 1968 and 1969 Wednesday evenings, again on Radio 1, was home to a
series of specially recorded folk sessions called My Kind of Folk. Most of this series was produced by Frances Line –
later to become Mrs Jim Lloyd and in the 1990s Controller of Radio 2.
Of course
other shows featured folk music, especially with the rise of progressive folk
at the end of the 60s. On Radio 1 John Peel, David Symonds and Night Ride all
played folk sessions.
Whilst
continuing to contribute to Country Meets
Folk, Jim Lloyd was to get his first solo folk series, Folk on Friday, starting on Radio 2 on 10 April 1970. This was also
produced by France Line. Jim had started as an actor in repertory before
joining Tyne-Tees in 1959 as a continuity announcer, moving to ATV two years
later. There was a spell introducing Midlands
Today on BBC1 before contributing to radio shows such as Today, Roundabout and Woman’s Hour.
A chance meeting in 1964 with The Spinners sparked his interest in folk music.
Folk on Friday ended in September 1971
when a schedule re-shuffle introduced the daily magazine show After Seven. Its replacement was Folk on 2, again with Jim at the helm
and now going out late on a Sunday night. Meanwhile Country Meets Folk itself lasted another year, finally closing its
doors in September 1972. Wally would return to Radio 2 the following year with Country Club – but that’s another story,
and another blog post.
Folk on 2 continued as the sole folk
show from October 1972 by which time it had shifted to a midweek position. But
it was joined by an accompanying programme Folk
73 from 4 July 1973, the presenter this time being one Simon Bates.Each week this show presented a different
folk artist or group in a 30-minute session and so it fell to the continuity
announcing staff, of which Simon was one, to do the honours. Folk 73 became, not unnaturally, Folk 74 with Len Jackson and then Jack
McLaughlin. Folk 75 again had Jack as
the announcer. For a few weeks on 1976 we also had Folk 76, this time with Michael Meech.
I am,
however, leaping ahead with the timeline, as back on 8 July 1973 Folk on 2 was replaced by Folkweave, best known, of course, for
being presented by Tony Capstick. Tony had been on the club circuit since the
early 60s but got his break into broadcasting thanks to Radio Sheffield, where
his popular, if quirky style ensured a 30 years career with the station.
Regrettably ill health due to heavy drinking led to his dismissal in early 2003
and his death a few months later.
Folkweave was to be a Radio 2 fixture
until 17 January 1980. The series was produced in Manchester by Peter Pilbeam.
In fact show one in 1973 was presented by Harry Boardman and Harry along with
Martin Winsor filled-in for Tony when he was unavailable. This is a clip of
Tony in 1978. I can’t take credit for this recording which I’ve edited down
from the show that I found on the web; at the time of writing the whole
show, plus several others, are available to download.
Here’s Tony
with his final Folkweave on 17
January 1980.
Three years
after Folkweave started there was
another new show, Both Sides Now,
again a fusion of country and folk, again presented by Wally Whyton with Jim
Lloyd doing the news and reviews. Starting in early 1976 on a Thursday night it
moved to a Saturday, after Sport on 2,
from that October until the end of its run in December 1977.
1978 saw the
revival of the session shows with Folk 78
from 3 January, this time with announcer and part-time folk singer Ruth Cubbin.
Later that year Johnny Silvo took over, continuing with Folk 79. Folk 80, running
from January to March, was introduced by Isla St Clair.
Folk on 2 with Jim Lloyd returned to the
airwaves on 31 March 1980, and remained part of the schedules until 1997.
Here’s Jim introducing that first show that would feature The McCalmans, Seamus
Gavin, Cyril Tawney and folk news with Colin Irwin.
After 30
years of presenting folk music Jim Lloyd retired in 1997. His place in early
1998 was taken by Ralph McTell, who’d’ sat in for Jim the previous summer. This
is part of Jim’s last show on 17 December 1997, with apologies for some of the
reception interference part-way through.
And so we
come to the present but departing incumbent, Mike Harding. Mike first show was
broadcast on 22 April 1998 and would soon be billed as “the best in folk, roots
and acoustic based music”. During his
tenure a new generation of folk performers have ensured yet another revival of
folk music and from 2000 Radio 2 initiated the annual Folk Awards. In October
it was announced that Mark Radcliffe would front the weekly folk show from next
January. Mike’s last programme is on Boxing Day.
The notion
of getting the nation’s funny men to play DJ probably started in the 1980s with
Lenny Henry.A year ago Absolute Radio
offered us shows with Frank Skinner and Dave Gorman, who left the station just
last month.
Today’s
advent calendar radio offering is part of Frank’s show from 17 December 2011.
With him in the studio are Alun Cochrane and Emily Dean.
One of the
radio moments of 2012 must be Danny Baker’s on-air two-hour (“pinhead weasels”)
rant. On 16 December 2011 however it was
business as usual on Danny’s BBC London 94.9 afternoon show. As you’d expect
there’s an eclectic mix of talking points and music. With Danny is Baylen
Leonard.
There’s a
unwritten rule that all commercial radio breakfast shows must be (a) constantly
plugged all day and (b) hosted by a couple of DJs, ideally one male, one
female. Presumably the expected on-air chemistry will produce great results.
This time
last year Viking FM Breakfast host Paul Foster had left the station in November
and filling in at short notice was Drivetime DJ Ant Nichols alongside Rosie
Madison. For December the station was running a ‘Cliff is Cool’ campaign. Probably
started in response to the launch of Absolute 60s in November that had declared
itself a Cliff-free zone, despite his musical contribution in that decade. For Viking though it was all in the name of the
Cash4Kids charity.
Waking up
listeners in South Yorkshire is Radio Sheffield’s Toby Foster. A year ago today
he was encouraging folk to phone-in with their Desert Island Discs – the Radio 4 programme was celebrating its
70th anniversary.
Apologies
for a few pops and clicks on this recording.
This time
last year the bad weather was dominating the news. Those storms were battering
the Isle of Man and so news of the Steam Packet sailings features in this
recording of the daily morning news programme on Manx Radio, Mandate AM hosted by John Moss. Mandate AM_131211
The notion
of sending Simon Bates into a war zone is not a new one. Back in his Radio 1
days Simes went off to the Gulf War. So it is perhaps surprising, and quite
heartening, for Smooth Radio to spend the time and resources on a week of
programmes from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. It makes fascinating listening.
Four months
later it was Bates in the Falklands. Meanwhile this week on Radio 1 Greg
James’s show is broadcast live from Afghanistan.
This is
perhaps untypical of Johnnie’s usual Sounds
of the 70s shows on BBC Radio 2. No musical guest. Instead, in this programme from 11 December last year, we get Sir Roger Moore, so the
link with all things 70s remains a little tenuous.
Michael Bublé was all
over the radio and TV schedules last year – mind you he did have a Christmas
album to promote. In fact he’s back this year too – already appearing on Heart
and with a series of seasonal shows on both Magic and Smooth this month.
In these
recordings you’ll hear Michael chatting to Dermot O’Leary on his Saturday
afternoon Radio 2 show and also doing a spot of DJ’ing – voicetracked one
assumes - on Magic 105.4. It seems we simply can’t get enough of the Bublé.
It was only
in retrospect that I realised that the geographic spread of stations I’ve
chosen for this series of advent posts is concentrated in the North, can you
tell I come from Hull?
There’s a
Hull connection here as I remember Simon Logan from his Viking days but now on
daily at BBC Newcastle. We get the good old radio standby of The Golden Hour, in this case two
mystery years under the title ‘Time of Our
Lives’. There’s the first of many appearances in these recordings of the
eventual winners of The X Factor,
Little Mix. You have been warned.
Jamie
Theakston’s usual partner on Heart Breakfast in London was Harriet Scott (who’s
just left the show after seven years) but this time last year Emma Bunton was
sitting in – we even get a Spice Girls track.
At 32
minutes in see how many of the tasks you still do that have now been replaced
by new technology.
Peter Levy
is your multimedia man. Viewers of Look
North in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire can see Peter grilling local
politicians and needling weatherman Paul Hudson each weekday evening.
Meanwhile at
lunchtime on BBC Radio Humberside (as well as BBC Radio Lincolnshire) Peter’s
doing what local radio does best, covering local issues or providing a local
slant on national stories. So in this programme we get wind turbines in
Swanland, working half-pay to help your employer, Sue Holderness in panto at
Grimsby and why staff who work in HR are more likely to get off with someone
else at the Christmas party.
Amazingly
Ken has occupied Radio 2’s mid-morning slot for twenty years; it’s a
broadcasting institution.
In this
recording you’ll hear all the usual features: The Love Song, Pop Master, Tracks
of My Years (Ralph McTell) and the banter with travel reporter Lynn Bowles.
This show also includes a magical live performance from Carole King.
In the days
of my daily commute into York I always had Galaxy as one of the presets. If I
wasn’t tuning in to Moyles or Wogan it was Hirsty.
Simon Hirst,
Danny Oakes and Jojo Kelly have been a fixture on Galaxy/Capital for nearly a
decade so a chat, a laugh and a bit of bickering amongst mates is the order of
the day.
When Moyles left Radio 1 breakfast in
September Hirsty was told to expect more listeners, his typically
self-deprecating response on Twitter was that you’ll need to “lower your
expectations” if you do listen.
In today’s
advent radio countdown it’s the Sunday show from 4 December 2011 with Mark Punter’s Gravy Train. This segment is billed as The Big Quiz of the Week as listeners
phone-in to win … the Mark Punter Prize Pen! Well were are talking BBC local
radio budgets!
I’m a
regular listener to this show as Mark and I both have an appreciation for the
late great broadcaster Ray Moore.
This time
last year the BBC local radio stream was suffering from ‘pops and clicks’ that
had started about December and wasn’t fixed until around Easter time. So
apologies in advance for quality of this recording.
A trip to
Scotland for today’s advent offering. Although recorded on Clyde 1, Boogie and
Dingo were networked across Bauer’s Scottish FM stations. In this clip Boogie
(Andrew Bouglas) and Dingo (David Konoc) are keen to out any males that resort
to tanning.
There can’t
be many DJs (any DJs?) who broadcast on five different radio stations each
week. You can hear Tony Blackburn on Radio 2, London 94.9, Magic, Radio
Berkshire and KMFM. A year ago, before he got the Magic and Berkshire gigs,
Tony was on each Friday morning on Hull’s KCFM. Here he is doing his stuff on 2
December 2011.
Tony was
dropped from the KCFM schedules in early 2012 when the P&O sponsorship was
withdrawn.
Little did
we know at the time but this was to be the last Christmas for Chris and the
team. But here we are with the first of a series of posts of radio shows from
this day one year ago, my radio advent calendar. Today it’s a scoped version of
the Chris Moyles Breakfast Show from 1 December 2011.
You can have
a good old sing-sing, not only with the Cheesy Song but the first festive
outing for Dominik the Donkey. The programme started a campaign to get Dominik
to the top of the Christmas charts. In the event it peaked at number three.
The juxtaposition of punk and disco makes fascinating
viewing for those of us watching the 1977 Top
of the Pops repeats (Thursday nights BBC Four).It remains uncertain whether 1978
re-broadcasts will go ahead, sans Savile-fronted editions, next year. Here’s
hoping they do. Anyhow, before we leave 1977 here’s a chance to hear Alan
Freeman counting down the hits from July of that year in a Pick of the Pops show on Radio 1 in 1991. Music from Barbra
Streisand, Carole Bayer Sager, The Stranglers, Kenny Rogers, ONJ, Boney M,
Gladys Knight & the Pips, ELP, The Jacksons and Hot Chocolate.
Right is the Radio
Times billing for the edition shown last week. The unnamed “Radio 1 DJ”
turned out to be Peter Powell’s first show.
The piazza
outside the New Broadcasting House has been pressed into service quite a bit of
late; mainly news crews filming BBC management and talking to other journalists.
It’s the new extension of the existing Broadcasting House, the art deco edifice
that was completed in 1932. Variously described at the time as a ‘petrified
dreadnought’, ‘a profane cathedral’, this ‘temple of the arts and muses’ was
celebrating its 50th anniversary when this programme, The Second Tower of Babel, was broadcast.
Here Wynford
Vaughan-Thomas “takes us back in time – down the endless corridors to
investigate the many worlds of sound created within this ‘tower within a tower’
– this ‘Second Tower of Babel’.”
The Second Tower of Babel was broadcast
on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 19 December 1982. The producer is Dilly Barlow.
Hear more about the early days of BH on The BBC and all Thatthis afternoon (and next week) on BBC Radio 4.
The place: Marconi House, London. The
date: Tuesday 14 November 1922. The occasion: the first ever broadcast by the
newly-formed British Broadcasting Company.
Behind the microphone Arthur Burrows,
the BBC’s Programme Director. At 6 p.m. he read the first news bulletin – twice
– once at normal speed and then again more slowly. Items were punctuated with a
chiming clock, actually Burrows at the tubular bells.
This week the BBC has a number of
on-air celebrations to mark the 90 years since that inaugural broadcast.
Here’s my own contribution to the
event, 90 years of radio in 90 minutes, or thereabouts. It’s in rough
chronological order but I sometimes dart around the years to make up some of
the individual sequences. There was plenty I wanted to include but either
didn’t have the recordings or they just didn’t fit. There’s plenty missing too,
nothing to represent Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales for instance. It
reflects my own radio interests and, of course, my own recordings over the
years.
Some material is sourced from the CD
75 Years of the BBC and the LP 50 Years of Broadcasting kindly
digitised by Andy Howells. Thanks also to David Lloyd for a couple of items from
his Radio Moments collection.
Here are some of the BBC90 programmes
to listen out for:
Well how did
you do? Last month I posted The Radio Game, a Radio 4 quiz about broadcasting history that was part of the BBC’s 60th
anniversary celebrations.
I’d like to
say I was inundated with emails in response to the quiz but that would be stretching
a point! Anyway here’s Barry Took with The Radio Game – All the Answers, a programme that was broadcast on Sunday 7
November 1982.
When first researching
this post I attempted the quiz back in September 2011 and scored 43 out of 60.
If
Radio 1 wanted comedy that was edgy and subversive, they got it with Chris
Morris. Though best known for his TV series The
Day Today (“slamming the wasps from the pure apple of truth”) and, most
controversially, Brass Eye (“one
young kiddie on Cake cried all the water out of his body”) Morris enjoyed a
brief, but equally controversial, spell on the nation’s favourite during the 1990s.
Chris
Morris was a radio obsessive and first got into broadcasting whilst still at
university as the student reporter on Radio West. After graduating he joined
the trainee scheme at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, learning the ropes of
production and presentation.
It
was back to Bristol, on the BBC local station, with a show called No Known Cure that he developed his style
of broadcasting that was put into effect at GLR and on national radio: the
cutting up of news headlines and vox pops, bizarre phone calls, made-up names, portentous
voiceovers and so on.
At
the same time as his Radio Bristol programmes, Morris ended up on the revamped
Greater London Radio. One of his comic creations on this show was the inept
spoof DJ Wayne Carr (pictured above) – sounding not a million miles away from Mike Smash or Dave
Doubledecks.
The
first appearance on Radio 1 was tucked away, out of harm’s way, in the middle
of the afternoon on Christmas Day 1990, at a time when most of the nation is
slumped in front of the telly. The show was not without controversy when Morris
suggested that the Pet Shop Boys next collaboration should be with Myra
Hindley. It was more than three years before he returned to the station.
Meanwhile,
working with Armando Iannucci, he went onto launch Radio 4’s On the Hour, the big break that led to the
TV work. Morris continued with occasional shows on GLR but made it back to Radio
1 in 1994 with The Chris Morris Music
Show – the emphasis was as much on the music as it was the comedy. This
series notoriously got Morris and Radio 1 into trouble, especially the infamous
‘obituaries’ for Michael Heseltine and, prophetically, Jimmy Savile.
Morris
was back at Radio 1 between 1997 and 1999 with the post-midnight black comedy
series Blue Jam. A couple of
appearances in 2000 on Mary Anne Hobbs’s The
Breezeblock was his last radio work.
You
can read more about Chris Morris and download many of his radio shows on the
@cookdandbombd website. In the meantime, back to that first show on Radio 1.
Apparently the BBC don’t have a copy of the two-hour show and I can’t find one
online. I’d like to say I’ve uncovered a copy but unfortunately all I have is
the first twenty minutes. So here is part of The Chris Morris Christmas Show first heard on 25 December 1990.
“This is London” they would intone,
then it was a quick blast of Lillibullero,
the pips and into the World News. But
what of the faces behind the voices of those BBC World Service announcers? Well
every now and again the London Calling
magazine used to publish their mug shots, in fact it was almost an annual
event.
For this post I’m recalling the names
from 1975 when we got a potted biography for most members of the team. All
you’ll see they range from the very detailed (Pam Creighton) to the lightweight
(Peter King). I’m presenting them as written with no indication as to what has
happened to these ladies and gentlemen since.
Brian Ashen
Born in London and educated in
Colchester, he worked briefly for a merchant bank before joining the BBC as a
finance assistant in 1964. He became a studio manager, and then switched to
announcing. His interests include music, reading and archaeology. He also likes
walking, particularly when he can look at a village church and a country pub
along the way. In London he spends much of his time visiting galleries and
museum, and he collects furniture, china, glass and books.
Michael Ashbee
After Cambridge (where he was a choral
scholar) and war service in the Army (which took him to the Far East) he joined
the BBC as an announcer in 1949 and has had a spell in Nigeria coaching
newsreaders and teaching English. This year, incidentally, he plans to holiday
in Nigeria resuming contact with many old friends. His family and his garden
keep him busy, he says, but he finds time to play the tuba in a brass band on
Sundays and sings in a choir occasionally. His hobby is collecting old
photographs.
Ashley Hodgson
Born in Claygate, Surrey, his father
was a dentist. Ashley was commissioned in the Royal Signals, serving in Greece
and the Middle East. After demobilisation tried several jobs including stock
controller for a large chain of stores and a spell with British Rail. Joined
the BBC on the engineering side in 1956, worked in control room and on
transmitters, then became a studio manager and finally an announcer in 1969.
Twice wed, he has a grown-up son by his first marriage and now a young family-a
6-year old boy and twin boys of 4 years. His wife is a teacher. Likes putting
on amateur plays, writing children’s stories, walking, sailing and sketching.
Leslie Tucker
Born in Ramsgate, Kent, he has spent
all his working life in the BBC External Services, entering as a very junior
transmitter engineer in 1942. After 10 years in studio operations, he took up
announcing. He became Chief Assistant (Presentation) in 1973, is in charge of
newsreading and announcing in the World Service and is responsible for all
presentation matters in London and in relay bases overseas. His great interests
are his family, European church architecture, Hollywood musicals, Mozart,
Billie Holliday, and cooking for his friends.
John Touhey
Born in London in 1937, and educated
at Alleyn’s School, Dulwich. After National Service, he joined the BBC as a
studio manager. His interests include music, reading theatre, and food and
drink. He lives in a book-lined flat near Battersea Park and pays frequent visits
to plays, ballet, recitals and the local pub. Says he makes futile attempts to
keep fit by unconvincing appearances on the tennis court.
Ian Gordon
Born in 1924 in New York of Scots
father, American mother. Lived in New York and Paris until he was 15. Says he
feels politically neutral in Britain but is a fervent Democrat-by-adoption in
the United States: his grandmother and Franklin Roosevelt’s mother were
sisters. Ian went to Milton Academy, USA, and then to Harrow in England. Spent
nine years in the British army, including service in Burma, and worked for two
years for ABC in Perth, Western Australia, before joining the BBC in 1952. Has
written 12 books mostly under his full name of Ian Fellowes-Gordon.
Bob Berry
Born in 1943 in South London and now
lives on the Essex coast. He joined the BBC in 1965 as a studio manager and has
been announcing since 1967. He has been married for four years and says he
supports as aging sports car, two demanding cats, and a healthy crop of weeds,
sometimes described as a garden. Likes the guitar, both classical and
folk/rock, and enjoys Baroque organ music. His other hobby is sailing and he is
particularly interested in the history of working sail of the 19th
and early 20th century in Britain and Northern Europe. He presents Strike Up the Band on World Service
every week.
Pippa Harben, Pam Creighton, Ann Every and Meryl O'Keefe
Pippa Harben was born at Bath,
educated in Bristol, and read history at Cambridge. She worked for a time as a
trainee buyer at a big West End store in London and decided it was not the life
for her. So she came to the BBC as a researcher and found it fascinating to
find out the facts and figures of all kinds of situations for the News and
other programmes. Then she moved to programme operations before finally to
announcing. She reads a lot, loves films, makes beer and wine and says she
really works to support two vast cats!
Pam Creighton was born in New Delhi
and lived all over India and Pakistan for 18 years except for five years at
Cheltenham Ladies College. Her father worked for the North Western Railway and
for the governments of India and Pakistan. Pam joined the BBC as a studio
manager 20 years ago and started announcing in 1957. Now she lives in a large
old house in Twickenham, a stone’s throw from the River Thames where she has
designed her own furniture and fireplaces. She comes from a musical family, has
studied the piano and ballet, and has a collection of over 1,000 LP records
(personal favourites: Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, Sibelius,
Vaughan-Williams and Britten) and discs of Dixieland jazz and the big bands.
She has extensive hi-fi equipment as her home, runs the local music club and
presents a 20-minute programme on new classical releases each week in the World
Service (New Records). She is an
expert on gardening, travels widely, reads science fiction and loves cricket
and rowing. And all that seems a very full life for anyone!
Ann Every says she had a sheltered
English boarding school education before becoming a speech therapist. Then she
decided to see what other people did, and tried being an au pair in
Scandinavia, a van driver in London and a scientific worker in a government
office, before joining the BBC as a studio manager with the intention of
staying one year. Sixteen years later she is still with the BBC and lives with
her cat in a little Victorian terrace house in London near the River Thames.
Her hobby is sculpture.
Meryl O’Keefe was born in Nairobi,
Kenya, and educated in South Africa where she began her radio career in the
South African Broadcasting Corporation in Johannesburg and Cape Town (she was
the first woman newsreader). She says she left to join the BBC in London to
gain wider experience and she has certainly done that. She has worked in radio
and television in Britain for 20 years… as a reported, presenter, disc jockey
and newsreader. During her career she has been thrown from a bolting horse in
Brighton’s traffic; washed ashore at Southsea in a Navy diver’s suit two sizes
too big; strapped to a dock harbour; hauled to the top of a TV mast and
photographed among the passing clouds. She considers travel a vital part of
life and perhaps that is why she finds the international atmosphere of the
World Service so enjoyable. She likes music, theatre, ski-ing and camping
around Europe in an old motor caravan.
Peter King
Born on April the First, 1921, and
says that things have never really improved! Grew up in the Isle of Thanet on
the Kent coast and contends that at least this was lucky, for it gave him a
love of fishing and cricket. It is a matter of great pride to him that his son,
after coaching from Knott and Underwood, smashed the blade of his size three
cricket bat with a gigantic hit before his 12th birthday had dawned.
Unfortunately it was from his own father’s bowling. Peter says that he likes
Peggy Lee, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, the Restoration period, old books,
furniture, pictures and silver. Dislikes waste, greenfly, and people who do
stupid things because they have pieces of paper which say they should.
Chris Chaplin
Educated at Watford and London
University, he gave up a short career in veterinary research to join the BBC
engineering division in 1963. Five years later he left the BBC to work for a
year on a schools radio programme for the4 Malawi government, returning to the
BBC as a World Service announcer. Like to travel and says that he is rapidly
developing talents as a gardener and general home handy-man to help eke out the
household budget. Also enjoys the theatre and cinema, chess and oil painting.
Peter Reynolds
Born in Scotland but has lived in
Rhodesia and South Africa. After Cambridge, became a captain in the Royal Engineers.
Joined the BBC in 1947 and became entitle to an extended holiday in 1972. ‘Do
something useful’ everyone told him. So he sailed the Atlantic in a small
yacht. His next holiday is a week’s gliding. He is intensely proud of his
family – his wife was formerly with the BBC – and lives in a Victorian house
near the Royal Botanical gardens at Kew. Other interests are music, languages
and mathematics.
Barry Moss
Born in Wellington, New Zealand (where
his father still lives). Came to Britain in 1950 to study musical composition,
and stayed. Drifted out of music and joined the BBC as an announcer in 1966;
now lives in London with two daughters who share many of his interests. He is a
Buddhist and is interested in oriental philosophy and religion. Says that he
questions the principle of a consumer society, as accepted in the West and as
spreading to the East, and describes his hobbies as music of all kinds… and
silence.
Peter Shoesmith
Born in 1936 and grew up in the south
coast town of Bexhill-on-Sea. He went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, had
two years in the army, and then had his first professional engagement as an
actor in his hometown. During the next seven years he appeared in theatre all
over Britain, in addition to several radio and TV plays. In 1965 he presented
three schools series for commercial TV, and since 1970 has worked for the BBC
in TV, domestic radio and the World Service where, in addition to newsreading,
he has contributed 20 talks to Letter
from London. He lives in Wimbledon and enjoys driving, gardening and
reading … he says he’d like to own a bookshop one day.
Roger Collinge
Born in 1924 in Birmingham. Spent some
time with an amateur acting company before joining the RAF. Served in India and
became interested in broadcasting when he linked up with Radio SEAC in Colombo.
Returned to Birmingham to join the BBC and then to London as a newsreader for
the World Service. Lives at Biggin Hill in Kent, a stone’s throw from the aerodrome,
so it is not surprising to find that he is still very interested in aero
affairs. He is married and has one daughter, a lawyer. He likes early Italian
music.
Lindsay MacDonald
Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in
1928, he read music and modern languages at University of New Zealand,
supporting himself by periodic announcing in Wellington. After graduating, he
joined the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, and finally left for England
in 1956 to continue with his studies of the organ. He had a short spell as a
school teacher and then came an offer to join the BBC. Apart from playing the
organ (and searching out interesting instruments in Britain and in Europe
generally); he travels a great deal, particularly in France, and collects
books. He is married to a New Zealander and they have a nine-year-old daughter.
Keith Bosley
Lives with his singer wife, son,
foster-daughter and cat in a house which needs a coat of paint, he says, and a
garden which badly needs attention. He spends much of his time writing,
translating, reviewing poetry or playing keyboard instruments for his wife. His
favourite pastimes are entertaining friends and exploring the countryside on a
cycle. He likes Indian food, Hungarian wine and Japanese crackers.
George Eason
Born in Berkshire in 1938, grew up in
the English countryside, and went to Oxford University. Married with three
children. Passionately interested in music, ranging from Palestrina to Duke
Ellington, Charlie Parker and beyond. Likes reading, English literature and modern
European history.
John Gordon
He was an announcer in the 1950s but
had an ambition to become an actor and went to drama school. He had several
years in repertory around Britain and was seen on television. The he became a
TV announcer in Southampton before rejoining the BBC and producing plays and
arts programmes for the African Service. After several years, which included
two spells in East Africa, he returned to newsreading.
John Wing
Was born in Cardiff in 1928 and
appeared as the boy hero in serial plays at the age of 14. He has worked in
Forces broadcasting and in BBC radio and television. Between his periods of
duty at the World Service microphones, he retreats rapidly to his home in
Hertfordshire where he relaxes with his rose garden, his antique furniture and
a vast collection of records.
In addition Peter Lewis, Tony
Szeleynski and John Stone were pictured (below) but no information was provided.
The above was all taken from the
February, March and April editions of London
Calling from 1975 very kindly loaned to me by Chrissy Brand.
