Go Man Go

Go Man Go was another of those BBC Light Programme lunchtime music shows that proliferated during the 1950s and 1960s. Recorded before a frenzied young audience they offered the latest hits as interpreted by an orchestra, resident singers and weekly guests. In the words of the programme billing it was a ‘lunchtime session of rock, cha-cha, jazz and the top of the pops’. In this case the music was provided by the Oscar Rabin Band under the direction of David Ede, who also introduced the majority of the shows. Go Man Go ran for 256 shows between December 1958 and March 1964. The programme’s origins lie with the self-effacing band leader Oscar Rabin, whose own broadcasting career goes back to the 1920s.

Oscar Rabinowitz was born in Riga in 1899 and his family moved to London when he was aged just four. The story goes that on his way to school in the East End he regularly met and guided a blind fiddler who, in return, gave him violin lessons By the time he was 15 he’d become a professional musician, playing the violin and later the bass saxophone, and studying at the Guildhall School of Music.  After the war, in 1919, he formed his first band called the Syncomaniacs Jazz Five changing their name a year or two later to the Romany Five. Rabin met guitarist and banjo player Harry Davis in Liverpool in 1924 and they joined forces, starting at the Palace Hotel in Southend. Adding more members to the combo they became the Romany Band and enjoyed a long residency at Hull’s Palais de Danse from July 1926 to October 1927. They made their first broadcasts from the venue on the city’s BBC relay station 6KH in February and June 1927. Their next radio appearance was on 2LO in 1929.

From 1929 the band was touring the dance halls on the Astoria circuit and regularly appearing at the Astoria on Charing Cross Road. The Romany Band was billed as ‘led by’ or ‘under the direction of’ Oscar Rabin but he generally sat behind his bass sax. It was Harry Davis (pictured above left with Oscar Rabin right) who acted as the front man and vocalist with Rabin saying “I’d rather leave that kind of job to someone who can do it well”. In the words of one later press review “Oscar Rabin is a dance band leader who has no desire to stand in front of his band making vague gestures and seems quite content to produce grunting sounds from his bass saxophone”. (1)

During the 30s the Romany Dance Band, as it was now known, continued to tour, had a long residency at the Hammersmith Palais, cut a few records and, from 1935, make increasingly regular BBC radio broadcasts and even some appearances on Radio Normandy in a show sponsored by the House of Seager. It was claimed that the band was run on an entirely co-operative basis. Profits and losses were shared equally by members and there was a £2,000 band fund from which was paid full wages for sickness or vacant dates.   

By 1938 the Romany Dance Band was one of the main bands heard on the wireless, alongside those led by Joe Loss, Ambrose and Henry Hall. On 22 October that year they also appeared on BBC television in the first ever broadcast from a dance hall, with cameras being present at Hammersmith’s Palais de Danse. They made a couple more pre-war TV appearances and in the 1950s provided the music for Come Dancing.

With the outbreak of World War II Oscar Rabin continued to appear in Hammersmith and make at least weekly, sometimes even daily, broadcasts. After some personnel changes, in the summer of 1940 they dropped the ‘Romany’ reference from the band’s name.

The Oscar Rabin Band appeared at Portsmouth's
Savoy Ballroom in September 1949

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Oscar Rabin and his Band made hundreds of broadcasts, including Music While You Work. Meanwhile, by 1950 David Ede had joined the band as a clarinet and saxophone player and also appeared on the bill with his own vocal quartet when the band toured. In 1951 Harry Davis left for the States to live with his daughter and son-in-law (2). David Ede took over duties as the band’s compere of what was then billed as “Britain’s foremost broadcasting band”.  

It was in September and October 1957 on the Light Programme that Oscar Rabin and his Band started weekly lunchtime shows billed as Break for Music. The singers employed were Scottish-born Patti Forbes, Mel Gaynor (described, when he joined the band, as the “new Anglo-Indian pop-chorus specialist) and singer-songwriter Johnny Worth, real name John Worsley who also worked professionally as Les Vandyke. They were back on Tuesday lunchtimes from 31 December 1957 in a programme now called Dancing Time – it would run until September 1958. (3). Joining Mel and Johnny on vocals was Lorie Mann (real name Barbara Burke) who along with David Ede meant they were cheesily referred to as ‘Three Men and a Mann’. Making the introductions was staff announcer Bruce Wyndham.

But during that run of Dancing Times there was bad news. Hours after his show on 17 June 1958 Oscar Rabin he was admitted to Putney Hospital suffering from exhaustion, He suffered two heart attacks and died on the Friday. The band continued under Ede’s direction.

Radio Times billing for the show 14 July 1961

By 1958 the Rabin Band had a long residency at the Wimbledon Palais de Danse and, at the end of the year, on 29 December, they were back on-air for the start of the five and a bit year run of Go Man Go. With Lorie Mann and Mel Gaynor were Ray Pilgrim (also going by the name Bobbie Stevens), Colin Day and vocal group The Hound Dogs. (4)

Production duties changed from John Hooper to Terry Henebery (5) in September 1959 and “the show with the most” now also included ‘The Grooving Guitar of Don Sanford’. The band’s pianist and arranger Arthur Greenslade (later Shirley Bassey’s music director) also started to be featured with his own ‘Arthur Greenslade and the Gee Men’.

Celebrating the first anniversary of Go Man Go.
L-R Terry Henbery, David Ede, Lorie Mann
& studio manager Frederick Harris (Alamy)

Changes in musical tastes necessitated a change in approach for the programme. From April 1962 David Ede was no longer doing the chat between tunes, that role was now taken by jazz guitarist Dis Disley. As well as regular guests from the jazz world there are increasingly more artists from the pop charts such as Craig Douglas, The Brook Brothers, Joe Brown, Ronnie Carroll and Susan Maughan. In later shows the guests ranged from The Rolling Stones, The Swinging Blue Jeans and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas to Roger Whittaker, Kenny Lynch and, a rare US performer, Gene Vincent.

For the 200^th show in January 1963 Alan Freeman made the introductions, followed by Tony Withers and Don Moss. Don George, later at Radio 1, became the show’s third and final producer from October 1963.   

At least two editions of Go Man Go survive in the BBC archives, one from 28 December 1959 and another from 1961 that was repeated in 1995. This off-air recording also dates from 1961. My original information was that the show was from 28 November 1960, but checking some of the release dates of the songs covered and the helpful mention of a weekend football result it’s the broadcast from 13 February 1961. (6)

In this recording, which is not quite complete as its short by about six or seven minutes (a number of announcements have been clipped and the 1.30pm news bulletin that interrupts the programme isn’t included), the band are joined by singers Barbara Kay (she’d provide the vocal on Johnny Reggae in 1971), Colin Day and Ray Pilgrim plus Don Sanford on guitar and sax player 'Rockin' Rex Morris (he’d played with Lord Rockingham’s XI). This is yet another home recording made by the late Eric Bartington and kindly donated to me by Gerad de Roo.

The tunes included in the show are:

Three Blind Mice – a jazz version of this nursery rhyme. Jazz arrangements of the tune had been in existence since the 1930s and Duke Ellington recorded a version.

Rubber Ball – a hit for both Bobby Vee and Marty Wilde that year

Autumn Tears – sung by Barbara Kay, a song by Norman Newell and Cyril Ornadel

Ginchy – a Bert Weedon tune played by Don Sanford  

C’est si bon – the French popular song performed by Colin Day

Dixieland One-Step – a 1917 jazz standard in the ‘Jazz Bag’ feature

Will You Love Me Tomorrow – the Goffin-King song that was the current US number one for The Shirelles

Miss Annabelle Lee – an old twenties tune. Apparently listeners wrote into the BBC asking for more dance music to be played in the 1920s style (7)

The Story of My Love – a hit at the time, but only in the US, for Paul Anka

Naomi – played by Arthur Greenslade and the Gee Men

Are You Lonesome Tonight – Ray Pilgrim’s sings his mum’s favourite song that was also the Juke Box top play of the time

Stay – a rendition of the doo-wop song that had just charted for Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs

Many Tears Ago – a current hit for Connie Francis

Walk Right Back – at the time a brand new release by The Everly Brothers that would top the hit parade at the end of the month

Red Wing – a trad jazz version

First Taste of Love – a new release for Ben E. King

And there the recording ends without the closing announcement.

Further off-air recordings of Go Man Go from 21 December 1962 plus some other extracts are on YouTube uploaded by user HonestArry, who has also written a very informative Wikipedia article. The 2 January 1961 show is also on YouTube from user Bits N Pieces. You can also find a recording of a 1936 show featuring The Romany Band uploaded by Jonathan Holmes.

Radio Times billing 2 January 1961

Go Man Go continued on the Light Programme until its last show on Friday 27 Match 1964, just a day before Radio Caroline sailed into the airwaves. Similar lunchtime shows continued to be broadcast such as Parade of the Pops (see blog post Back in Time On the Light –Part 1), The Beat Show and, replacing Go Man Go the following Friday yet another veteran of the pre-war dance era, The Joe Loss Pop Show.

The Rabin Band (at this time billed as ‘David Ede and the Rabin Band’) continued to tour for the next year but tragedy struck the following year. In April 1965 they had a long-term engagement at the newly opened Blackpool Locarno Ballroom but under the name of David Ede and his Orchestra. On 25 June it was reported that David was missing at sea after a 14-foot dinghy capsized in choppy waters off Blackpool. Also on board was singer Michael Taylor who managed to swim ashore and raised the alarm; twelve hours later David’s body washed ashore. A month later the coroner’s verdict recorded “misadventure”. The band continued to perform at the Locarno under the leadership of trumpeter and deputy bandleader Terry Reaney, eventually becoming the Terry Reaney Showband and playing at the Locarno until 1970.  

Members of the Rabin family have show business connections. Of Oscar’s four children two sons, Ivor and David, were in the music agency business near Cambridge Circus and both then joined the Mecca Agency after a merger, David as MD and Ivor as Assistant MD along with Phil Tate. Another son, Bernard, also became an agent and managed the band following his father’s death, he also managed the Wimbledon Palais.  Bernard’s son Michael performed as Mike Rabin and the Demons in the late 1960s/early 1970. Meanwhile David’s daughter Rachel (stagename RAIGN) is a singer, songwriter and producer who came to fame after appearing on The X Factor in 2014.

(1) Quoted in Western Daily Press 11.11.40

(2) Harry’s daughter Beryl was a singer with the Oscar Rabin Band and she was married to Peter Potter who would devise and chair the US version of Jukebox Jury

(3) Jerome Kern’s Dancing Time had been Rabin’s signature tune since 1935

(4) Other singers performing with The Rabin Band, though not on any radio broadcasts, included Mike Redway and Bernard Manning

(5) Henebery also worked on Saturday Club and produced BBC2’s seminal Jazz 625 series

(6) Monday 13 February 1961 from 1300 to 1345 on the BBC Light Programme

(7) By coincidence there was a singer called Annabelle Lee who toured with the Oscar Rabin Band in the 1940s and in the 1950s sang with the Fraser Hayes Four

This is the first in a short series of posts marking the launch of the BBC Light Programme 80 years ago. 

Questions of Sport

Questions on sport are always a part of any general knowledge quiz but radio has, with just a couple of minor exceptions, pretty much stayed away sports-based quiz shows for the last 30 years. Meanwhile, on the telly you could watch, at least until recently, A Question of Sport or A League of their Own, though the BBC offering had long since strayed from anything approaching a serious quiz and Sky’s show was likened to A Question of Sport without sports questions. 

From the 1960s through to the 1990s radio regularly posed sports questions in Sporting Chance, Brain of Sport, Games People Play and a pre-tv version of They Thinks It’s All Over. Of more recent vintage, and those minor exceptions I mentioned above, are a talkSPORT Sports Quiz and even some radio editions of A Question of Sport, both broadcast during the Covid pandemic.

In the 1940s and 50s there were occasional sports quizzes on BBC radio such as the wartime Captain Cuttle’s Sports Quiz during Ack-Ack, Beer-Beer (the magazine for the Anti-Aircraft, Balloon Barrage and Searchlight Units), youngsters competing in Children’s Hour quizzes or The Younger Generation Under 20 Parade, this with Rex Alston as question master. The Welsh Home Service put sporting questions to teams in Sports Forum (1953-54) and although the Scottish Home Service also broadcast what was billed as Sport Quiz (1950-52) this turns out to be a “weekly feature in which experts answer questions on sport put to them by members of a studio audience”.

Some serious sports quizzing starts to appear in the autumn of 1957 when Sports Report (Light Programme) broadcasts an Inter-Regional Quiz; this pits a team of BBC national sports commentators against regional sports reporter colleagues. But it was Welsh broadcasting legend and producer Alun Williams who developed the idea of sports clubs competing in a knockout quiz. Going out on the Welsh Home Service in late 1957/early 1958 was Top of the League. This saw football supporters clubs talking part in a Top of the Form fashion, with the recording made at two venues and the team and a quizmaster at each. Posing the questions were Alun himself and Ifor Rees. This was followed by another Welsh Home Service series, again devised by Alun, called Make Your Mark. For the first series in 1958 the slant was towards the game of rugby with members of rugby clubs answering questions ‘on the laws of the game, its personalities, their own club and general sport.’ For the second 1959-60 series both rugby and football clubs competed, this time dealing with ‘questions of a general sporting nature’. Joining Alun as question master for Make Your Mark was Cliff Morgan.  Cliff also hosted a TV version of the quiz in 1959/60 as part of the weekly Welsh Sports Parade.   

Sporting Chance 24 June 1968

On national radio the first regular sports quiz was the Light Programme show Sporting Chance (1960-74). The original chairperson was Brian Johnston and it was devised by Michael Tuke-Hastings (who later would also come up with the Treble Chance quiz). Initially an inter-town quiz, later series were also inter-services and from 1963 invited teams played against a resident team made up of commentators and sports journalists.  Setting the questions was cricketer and scorer Roy Webber who, following his death in 1962, was succeeded in the role by two more Test Match Special statisticians:  Arthur Wrigley and, from 1967, Bill Frindall.

The 1964 series of Sporting Chance had the resident team of Maurice Edelston, Peter West and Alun Williams playing against a team of four boys representing a school (with the supposition, no doubt, that no girls would be interested in sport). Rounds included ‘I’ll Always Remember’ in which well-known sports persons recalls a highlight of their career, a ‘Guess the Year Round’ and a ‘Spot the Mistake’ in which a commentator makes one deliberate mistake. The questions were in the main confined to ‘Rugger, Soccer, Cricket, Athletics, Swimming, Boxing and Lawn Tennis’ but apparently, according to Frindall, horse racing was ‘‘for some unfathomable reason considered unsuitable”.   

Both Sporting Chance, and Brain of Sport that followed, took their quizzing seriously probably because both were produced by the Sport and OB department. Michael Tuke-Hastings was, from 1957 to 1972, the producer of Test Match Special which may explain the reason he approached cricket scorers to set the questions. Other producers of Sporting Chance included Geoff Dobson and John Fenton who both directed the Sports Service on Network Three (later Radio 3) and Sport on 2.   

A question from the Brain of Sport 1980 quiz book 

Sporting Chance was followed by Brain of Sport (1975-89) with heats and a grand final and questions split between general and specialist rounds. The programmes were recorded at sports clubs and social clubs around the country. Again devised by Michael Tuke-Hastings it was chaired by Peter Jones and this time writing the questions was Chris Rhys. Chris was a rugby player turned freelance journalist who wrote over 20 books on sport, including some Brain of Sport quiz books, and also researched ITV’s response to A Question of Sport, Sporting Triangles. After Tuke-Hastings stepped aside from production duties it fell to Paul Garside, Patricia Ewing, Richard Maddock, Caroline Elliott, Joanne Watson, Pat Thornton and Gill Pulsford.  

The 13 champions of Brain of Sport are listed on the UK Game Shows website and there’s a rare recording of a 1984 edition on the Ye Olde Sports Videos channel on YouTube. There were also occasional Brain of Sport Challenge specials were, much like the Sporting Chance days, finalists would take on three sports commentators

Games People Play (Radio 2 1975-78) was a more light-hearted affair, produced by Richard Willcox of the Light Entertainment department, It was billed as testing the knowledge of ‘well-known stars of entertainment and sport’. So, for instance, on the first show it was Mike and Bernie Winters, Graham Hill and Bob Wilson. Other appearing in the first series included Eric Morecambe, Bernard Cribbins, David Hamilton, Pete Murray, Chris Brasher, Henry Cooper, Graham Hill, Fred Trueman and Barry John. Asking the questions this time was Peter West.  

Before its went over to BBC1 They Think It’s All Over enjoyed a short life on BBC Radio 5 (1992-4). It was created by comedy writers Bill Matthews and Simon Bullivant, both of whom had started writing for Week Ending. Chairing proceedings was Des Lynam and as team captains were Rory McGrath, who went on to be a regular on the TV version, and, getting the opportunity to try out his commentator impressions, Rory Bremner.   

From the second series comes this edition that was broadcast on Radio 5 on 21 February 1993, though my recording is of the Radio 4 repeat on 17 July. Des gets the first big laugh of the show with “Meet a man whose rich vocal talents are adored by millions. (short pause) Good evening”. The guest players in this edition are Steve Davis and Roger Black.  

Which brings me to Game, Set and Match and yet another series with Chris Rhys setting the questions. If this one usually slips under the sports quiz radar that’s because it aired on the BBC World Service. Chairing this was World Service sports stalwart Paddy Feeny (so I find myself writing about Paddy for the second time this year). I’ve little information about the programme other than it ran for 20 editions over three series in 1993, 1994 and 1995. This recording comes from the third series (I can’t date it precisely) and facing the questions are hurdler Kriss Akabusi (you’ll recognise the laugh), hockey player Simon Mason, rower Steve Redgrave and squash player Peter Nicol. Keeping the score is Louise Friend, extracts are read by announcer John Stone and the producer is Gillian Grey.     

Game, Set and Match

Series 1: 7 episodes August and September 1993

Series 2: 6 episodes August and September 1994 

Series 3: 7 episodes in April and May 1995.

Sporting Chance with Brian Johnston, then John Snagge, John Arlott , Alun Williams, Max Robertson and Peter Jones . BBC Light Programme (with repeats on the Sports Service of Network Three) and BBC Radio2 from 16 January 1960 to 16 June 1969 over 10 series. It returned as Quiz on 2 as part of Sport on 2 November 1973 to January 1974 with Peter Jones as questionmaster. Reverted back to Sporting Chance November to December 1974 again with Peter Jones and again during Saturday afternoon’s Sport on 2.

Brain of Sport with Peter Jones. BBC Radio 2 November 1975 to December 1989 over 13 series. The first series was broadcast as part of Sport on 2. 

Games People Play chaired by Peter West. 39 programmes over four series on BBC Radio 2 between 4 September 1975 and 22 September 1978.

They Think It’s All Over with Desmond Lynam and team captains Rory Bremner and Rory McGrath. BBC Radio 5 6 episodes 21 February to 27 March 1992 then 8 episodes 14 February to 4 April 1993 plus two Christmas specials with guests Brian Johnston and John Motson December 1993/January 1994.

 talkSPORT Sports Quiz March to September 2020 with Darren Bent and Laura Woods or Faye Carruthers or Lynsay Hipgrave

A Question of Sport with Mark Chapman, Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell 4 April to 13 June 2020 plus 24 December 2020.

If you have any recordings of the other quizzes I’ve mentioned that you’d like to donate I’d love to hear from you. Also if you happen to have any copies of London Calling or BBC Worldwide from the mid-90s please do get in touch.  

And the answers to the Brain of Sport 'Who are they?' questions are: Sebastian Coe, Hallamshire Harriers, Alberto Jantuorena (Cuba) and Zurich

Radio Lives - Colin Berry

He was Mr Radio 2 for four decades, the warm, trusted ever-present voice who read thousands of news bulletins and presented hundreds of music programmes. He deputised for many of the other DJs on the network. His technical skills and perfectionism meant he was often the link back at Broadcasting House through dozens of OBs, playing in the records and filling when the line went down. He spoke for the UK jury for 25 years of Eurovision Song Contests. His music knowledge and vast collection of LPs and singles informed his later local radio shows. He was Colin Berry, whose death was announced earlier this month.

All the many tributes to Colin mention his long service on BBC Radio 2 and his Eurovision connection but his radio career started in the days of the offshore pirates. Here’s a look back at Colin’s radio career.

Colin Berry was born on 29 January 1946 (sharing his birthday with his long-time friend Tony Blackburn who was born three years earlier) in Welwyn Garden City, one of the 'Brocket babies' born at Brocket Hall, and educated at the Wembley Grammar School. His first ‘broadcasts’ had an audience of just two, his mum and dad. Young Colin fixed up the Ferguson radiogram at the family home in Kenton so that he could play in the discs and whatever he’d taped off the Light Programme and introduce them.

His first job was working at one of the stores supplied by his father’s company – Cecil Berry was a director of Allied Suppliers – but young Colin was desperate to get into radio or television. Through a family friend he got his break at the London offices of Granada TV slotting adverts into commercial breaks when he was just 17. He then joined Westward TV also working on commercials and selling airtime when an opportunity came up to work on the admin side at Radio Caroline.

Colin joined Radio Caroline in 1964 as an Assistant Traffic Manager but after a few months he was asked to make a tape recording ‘for fun’ that led to him compiling (by recording the Light Programme news) and reading news bulletins and joining some DJs on their shows. He appeared on air as Robin Berry as fellow DJ Colin Nicol was also on the station at that time and management didn’t want two Colin’s on air. 

In 1965 he started recording commercials, such as the Weetabix Partners in Profit promotions, and made some personal appearances around Britain to “get better known”. “I used to get a lot of fan mail which rather surprised me, and even had a few proposals of marriage.” 

With the closure of most of the pirates in 1967 Colin joined Yorkshire Television as an admin assistant at their London office in Portland Place, though it was not a happy time for him as he was sacked for some mistake he’d apparently made but which management refused to tell him exactly what it was. 

Colin in his club DJ days (Surrey Mirror 1 May 1970)

In the late 1960s he was juggling a number of roles: volunteering at the Radio Harrow hospital radio and working one or two nights a week as a DJ at the Starlite Ballroom, Greenford and the 100 Club on Oxford Street. He would also DJ at Crawley’s Starlight Ballroom and the Birds Nest in Harrow, where a fellow DJ was Tony Barnfield who, a few years later, was also a BBC broadcaster and would present features on some of Colin’s overnight Radio 2 shows.   

At the same time he’d also made the acquaintance of some folk in the radio and music business and it was thanks to BBC broadcaster Roger Moffat that he got a job as a music plugger. His employer was the music publishing firm of Campbell Connelly (started by the song writing partnership of James Campbell and Reginald Connelly) and apparently he was responsible for getting Mouldy Old Dough to the top of the charts. So now you know who to blame!

Whilst still working for Campbell Connelly he freelanced as a summer relief announcer at HTV in 1971 and in 1972 at BBC Radio Medway (now Radio Kent). At Medway he took over the Saturday afternoon show Out and About from Simon Dee. Colin covered the music side whilst sports editor George Pixley looked after the sport. Due to his weekday work at a music publisher he had access to all the new releases which helped him build the show for which he had complete musical freedom. (It also gave him access to both commercial and non-commercial records that would help build up his home library that he would often dip into for his BBC Three Counties radio shows). He even had his own custom jingles recorded with the help of Rod Lucas, who at the time was producer of Medway’s Teen Scene. Rod would later provide some drop-ins for Colin at Radio 2.  

In 1973 an opportunity came along to join the BBC at Broadcasting House in the Trailer Unit for Radios 1 and 2 under Presentation Editor Jimmy Kingsbury. Kingsbury was looking for a new voice following the loss of Tony Myatt to Capital Radio. As well as writing and recording trailers the job also offered a position on the rota of presenters of Night Ride (midnight to 2 a.m. on both Radio 2 and Radio 1). It was Noel Edmonds that mentioned the vacancy to Colin over lunch one day, and encouraged him to audition; Noel had started at the BBC doing a similar job.

Colin’s first Night Ride was scheduled for Saturday 29 September 1973 but when his boss, Jimmy Kingsbury, phoned in sick for his shift on the Wednesday night/Thursday morning show he ended up been thrown in at the deep end and doing that one first.

Shortly after, Colin left the Trailer Unit to become a full-time announcer and newsreader. During the 1970s and 1980s the work of the Radio 2 announcers was quite varied. There was the reading of news bulletins on both stations, where Colin would develop a more punchier approach to reading for the Radio 1 bulletins on the half-hour. Evenings and weekends meant live continuity links between programmes as well as recording trailers and attending comedy show and panel game recordings to provide the opening and closing announcements.

Posing with way too many cups of BBC tea for
Night Ride 17 May 1974

Many announcers would also host live shows such as Night Ride, Music Through Midnight and The Late Show as well as programmes featuring one of the radio orchestras. Colin was particularly adept at the live shows, so much so, that when Simon Bates left the Early Show it was Colin that took over (for two years) from January 1976, so starting a long association with that time of day. These 6 to 7 a.m. Early Shows were carried on both Radio 1 and Radio 2, with Colin being the warm-up man for either Noel Edmonds or Terry Wogan (who was wont to refer to Colin as 'Wallace Beery'), depending on who you switched over to after the 7 o’clock pips. Most of the BBC local radio stations also carried part of the show so the audience ran into millions.

There’s a flavour of what these Early Shows sounded like in this sequence.

It was in 1977 that Colin also started his long association with all things European. That was the year he first acted as spokesman for the UK jury at the Eurovision Song Contest, a role he held, apart from in 1980 and 1998, through until 2002. Based down at Television Centre he would start off with the usual “London Calling, here are the results of the United Kingdom jury”, though it wouldn’t be until the 1994 contest that the world eventually saw the Berry visage when results were first delivered to camera.         

His first in-vision appearance as UK jury spokesperson in 1994. 
Colin's favourite Eurovision song was Take Me to You Heaven,
the winning Swedish entry by Charlotte Nilsson in 1999  

In 2012 Colin told me how things were organised behind the scenes for the song contest:  “On the day of broadcast the jury were assembled at Television Centre were they would watch the afternoon full dress rehearsal and there was a chance for them to hear any of the songs again if they wished. In the 70s and 80s the London end was under the control of Light Entertainment Organiser Tony James ...[who] was a great ambassador for the BBC and did everything with great finesse. He made sure that the jury members were well looked after, that all the introductions were made, providing a waitress-service dinner and having studio tours during breaks. When Tony’s team left in the 90s it was all clipboards and vouchers for the BBC canteen.”

During the contest itself Colin also had a monitor and a lip-microphone should “Wogan’s line vanish and there was a need for me to continue commentary. It never happened, but got within thirty seconds of it one year.”

He went on to say that “when it came to announcing the UK decision there was an agreed script but as the years passed I deviated a bit to make it less formal. Others did too eventually, but they tended to overdo it sometimes, building up the part”.

The BBC did acknowledge Colin’s 25 years in the spokesperson role and so threw him a lunch and presented him with a BBC inscribed microphone but at the same time they let it be known that changes were planned for the following year (as it transpired in the form of Lorraine Kelly) and that he’d no longer be required. This was despite supportive words from the King of Eurovision Terry Wogan who started his after-lunch speech by saying "I don't know why you’re getting rid of yer man....if it ain't broke why mend it?"

YouTube user ESC Clarinet Moon has compiled this video of Colin’s appearances in the Song Contest voting.  

Meanwhile, back on Radio 2 Colin maintained the European link by presenting the Europe music programmes (Europe 78, Europe 79 etc. ending in 1982) and taking over as main host of European Pop Jury. European Pop Jury, which had been running at intervals since 1965, featured pop juries in several countries passing verdict on the latest pop releases from each nation in a Europe-wide hook-up. David Gell presented the London end (pre-recorded at the Paris Theatre, Lower Regent Street and later the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House) until he went back to his native Canada in 1977 when Andy Cartledge, Nick Page and Don Durbridge all had a go at it. Producer Mel House auditioned them plus David Allan and Colin to permanently take over the job with Colin getting the gig until it all ended in December 1983.    

Radio 2 had planned to switch over to 24 hours broadcasting in November 1978 but in the event, due to industrial action, it was postponed until the following January. By then it was Colin who was going to kick things off in the early hours of Sunday 28 January with a four hour stint. He’d spent the previous week popping into other people’s shows to promote the new service and during Ray Moore’s Saturday night show was on hand to chat to Ray and link up with BBC2 viewers.

You and the Night and the Music was run on a shoestring. All the presenters were staff announcers on a daily presenting rota and there was, according to Colin “a mere ten minutes of commercial needletime. The shows were full of foreign recordings and studio sessions. Musicians Union restrictions were hard on music lovers in them there days!” To further pad out the shows pre-recorded features were also dropped in. Colin presented YATNAM, as it became known, at intervals until November 1983.

All this time Colin continued to read news bulletins as he felt he didn’t want to lose the skill. He was also recording a weekly Golden Days show for BFBS radio and music shows for Inflight Prodcutions Ltd. At Radio 2 he was the backstop during many outside broadcasts, playing in the discs, reading any traffic reports and just been on standby if the line went down, whether it was an afternoon at the races or the JY prog coming from Rhodesia or Toyko. This was also the time when if a main Radio 2 presenter was off they could often call on one of the announcers to cover, which he did for Terry Wogan, Ray Moore, David Hamilton, Charlie Chester and others. The only bit of broadcasting he regretted not doing was reading the classified football results on a Saturday afternoon.

In this montage we hear Colin across the years on Radio 2 (and Radio 1).

One of Colin’s best mates was fellow broadcaster Ray Moore, whose shows often followed Colin’s or who would cover each other programmes in what Ray termed as a ‘Box and Cox’ arrangement.  In his autobiography Ray recalls that he first met Colin in the late 60s “when he was a young record plugger who regularly turned up at The George at lunchtime wearing a baggy pink suit, a very daring number even for those liberated times.”

Colin and Ray

When Colin married Sandra Barker in the summer of 1981 their honeymoon was in Corfu. Ray takes up the story: “Our good friend Colin Berry had married, inappropriately enough on Independence Day, and had invited the two of us to go on honeymoon with him and his wife Sandra. It seemed a bizarre idea at first but, given that the four of us were far from strangers, it began to look quite logical. The episode took on a rather less rosy dimension when, after five days away, I became semi-housebound thanks to a boating accident”.

The Face behind the Voice in 2009

According to the 1983 edition of Who’s Who in Radio Colin’s likes were motoring, walking and a good pint of real ale. His dislikes: traffic jams, bad timekeepers and pressurised beer. In later editions the real ale was still there but now with added likes of the Isle of Wight, Victoria Wood and oysters with ‘most folk music’ and cricket on the negative side.   

On a personal note I’d been listening to Colin since the days when I first started recording programmes and clips off the radio in early 1976. Tuning in to Radio 1 or Radio 2 before 6 a.m. it was either dead air or test tones until he came on with the early show. When I started writing this blog in late 2010 Colin was one of the people I contacted and, fortunately, he responded. He was always very helpful in assisting me to identify voices from the past and freely answered questions on programmes and broadcasters. We swapped airchecks and I was only too pleased to provide audio for one of his local radio specials on pirate radio. I was fortunate to meet Colin back in 2015 for a long lunch at the Bree Louise pub (since demolished). He was concerned that I’d spot him (of course I did) saying “hopefully you will recognise me.. a good bit more hair missing since the last photo”. I joked that I’d carry a rolled-up issue of the Radio Times, and I did indeed pop into WH Smiths at Euston for a copy. We enjoyed a long chat over a pie and several pints of real ale (naturally). We’d planned to meet up again in 2018 but for one reason or another it didn’t happen.

As the Daily Telegraph obituary says: ‘Switching between the soothing, unforced tones of a presenter, and then the authoritative ones of a newsreader, Berry was skilled at creating the necessary intimate connection with the listener.’ As someone has commented to me “he had his own built-in compression”. Apparently amongst Colin’s regular listeners were the Kray twins with Reggie telling the News of the World: “We both love to listen to Radio 2. We’ve learned to appreciate another side of life. One of my favourites is Colin Berry of Radio 2...he’s a nice fellah.”

Away from the radio studio Colin made only occasional forays onto television. Aside from those Eurovision duties he appeared on The Generation Game, Blankety Blank, Bargain Hunt and Supermarket Sweep, both of these with Tony Blackburn, and just one appearance on Top of the Pops alongside Peter Powell on 30 October 1980. 

Colin in the Radio 2 studio sometime in the 1980s.
He claimed to able to work those faders and knobs blindfold
so frequently was he on air

Colin continued to present shows on Radio 2 throughout the 80s and 90s, mostly late night or early morning shifts. “The only trouble with early shows”, he said, “is that they get earlier!” He hosted the weekday early show, with a 4 a.m. start, from 1984 to May 1988 and the weekend version in 1993 and 1994. Meanwhile, overnight, he was one of the presenters of Night Ride between 1989 and 1995. Colin’s last billed Radio 2 show was on 31 March 1995, but it wasn’t actually the last. Fast forward to 2012 when Richard Allinson was doing a weekend 3 to 6 am slot and Colin was on late news-reading duty when one weekend Richard doesn’t make it to the studio and it ends up with Colin doing an impromptu fill-in.

Enjoying a real ale with Dave Cash

Colin retired from the BBC in 2006 but remained on the books as a freelance newsreader on Radio 2 until September 2012. By this time the plan was for broadcast journalists to read the news on the station, as they did on 6 Music and increasingly overnight on Radio 2. Colin’s final bulletin was at 3 a.m. on 8 September 2012 and with “and that is likely to be it from me” he signed off for the last time, just shy of 39 years of news-reading.   

Meanwhile, over on BBC Three Counties Radio Colin was settling in for some regular weekend music programmes. He’d already appeared on 3CR in 2004 and in 2008 until early 2009 he was on the Saturday night late show. From April 2009 until July 2010 he presented a three-hour early evening show known as The Saturday Club. Both these programmes were also carried on other stations across the eastern counties to give a fairly substantial audience. From 2011 until 2019 Colin continued to work for the station covering for Richard Spendlove on his Saturday night programme many times as well as occasional specials he called A Little Light Music, one on Eurovision songs (of course), one on pirate radio and, in the last couple of years, mining a seam of one hit wonders.

From 26 December 2014 here’s Colin remembering the days of the offshore pirates.

Those 3CR shows were a real mix of musical genres and styles. Colin had a penchant for light music and library music so often his only source for these, and some rare pop 45s that he played, were from his own vinyl collection. He was concerned that the BBC would, in a computerised ViLoR studio setting, still support the use of record players and his liking for dubbing stuff off onto mini-disc (I once sent him a pack of blanks MDs to keep him stocked up), especially after the move to new studios in Dunstable in 2015.  

Colin’s final radio programme, again on one hit wonders, was broadcast on BBC Three Counties Radio on 25 December 2019. The pandemic the following year, and changes to BBC local schedules as a result, greatly decreased the opportunity for further occasional shows. 

For about three years Colin had been unwell and was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. He died on Wednesday 16 April. He is survived by Sandra and their children Marina and Jonathan.

In 2012 I edited together this short sequence of Colin on the radio over 50 years.

Colin Berry 1946-2025

On the Front Line with the Robinsons

Before the Archers, before the Nashs and Tysons, and even before the Dales, there was one radio family that had millions of listeners tuning into their wireless sets each day – and that was the Robinson family. To find out who they were and why they came to be on air we have to go back to the Second World War.

As part of the war effort the BBC had split its Overseas Services into five divisions, one of which was the North American Service (NAS). Seconded to that service were a number of American and Canadian broadcasters. Heading the service was Maurice Gorham, who’d transferred over after editing the Radio Times for eight years, and had spent some time Stateside studying their broadcasting experience.

To appeal to their North American audience the service had “so far as radio technique is concerned [be]...presented in a different way”. A drama serial was seen as one way of providing a distinctive schedule as well as aiming to generate North American support for the British war effort.

It was Ernie Bushnell, seconded to the BBC from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who first floated the idea of having what he termed “a family life serial” (the term ‘soap opera’ was not used) and that it would “have to be a specially written script dealing with the daily doings of the average British family, particularly in war time”.

Hearing of the proposed serial it was writer Alan Melville (who’d been working as a BBC producer in Aberdeen and Glasgow before joining the NAS in London) that expressed an interest in developing and writing it. To help give him a steer on what North American audiences were used to, Bushnell had brought over some tapes of US soaps and by March 1941 the programme was ready to go into production, its title Front Line Family. The serial would be described, in the words of the London Calling billing as ‘the adventures of the British Family Robinson in Wartime London’. A later press report explained further: ‘It tells the adventures day by day of the London family Robinson, the father, the mother, their grown-up children, friends, neighbours and tradesmen, and gives overseas listeners a vivid idea of what a typical London family experiences under war conditions’.  

Front Line Family was broadcast six days a week (there was no episode on Sundays and it was later reduced to five days a week) with the first episode airing on 27 April 1941. Melville wrote all the episodes for the first year and a half himself, just over 400 of them, writing one each evening and then rehearsing and recording it the following morning. They were recorded three weeks in advance of transmission with each episode airing twice a day.

This rather prosaic description of the programme’s genesis is at odds with the story that Melville often told in that he had the idea for the drama whilst having dinner with Bushnell during a heavy London air-raid. Apparently they had to duck for cover under the dining table several times during the meal. In his autobiography, Merely Melville he takes full credit for the idea: “in an unguarded moment I suggested to the Powers that Be that it might not be a bad idea to put on the North American Service a daily soap opera about a London family Taking It. The Powers, after some dithering, agreed and said I could have a go for six weeks only, and to watch the budget.”

What Melville doesn’t mention in his recollections was the earlier BBC series The English Family Robinson. First broadcast in 1938, and again in 1940, it told the everyday story of Charles and Clara Robinson and their three children Joan (20), Peter (19) and John (13). It was written by comedy actress and writer Mabel Constanduros and her nephew Denis, with Mabel taking the part of Clara and Ralph Truman as Charles. A Radio Times introductory article references that this type of drama is typically American: ‘It is not often that British listeners have the chance to really get acquainted with a set of characters on the air. The serial feature, which is the backbone of American radio, has made few and fleeting appearances here’. It goes on to say that The English Family Robinson ‘are as near to real people as you can expect on the radio.’ However, with just six episodes in 1938 and three in 1940 it’s really more of an earlier sitcom than a radio soap. The Robinson family continued their lives after the radio series when Mabel and Denis wrote the characters into the 1943 stage play Acacia Avenue (a name that would become synonymous with an everyday middle-class suburban street) that toured throughout the 1940s and a 1945 film titled 29 Acacia Avenue.

The actors behind The Robinson Family are revealed in this
photo from 4 May 1946 (Manchester Evening News)

The Robinson family, Mum, Dad and their three offspring lived at 88 Ashleigh Road. The cast of Front Line Family weren’t credited on air but included Burnley-born variety singer and actor Ernest Butcher who played Yorkshireman John Robinson and Scottish actress Nell Ballantyne was Helen Robinson, whose exclamations of “what I’d give for a nice cup of tea” became something of a catchphrase. Then there was Paul Martin (later John Dodsworth) as elder son Dick who served with the Auxiliary Fire Service, Tony Halfpenny as the younger son Andy, Nancy Nevison as the daughter Kay (a part later played by Gabrielle Blunt) and Dulcie Gray as the daughter-in-law who, when she wanted to leave the programme for a theatre engagement, was written out as being pregnant. The part of Mary, Andy’s wife, was eventually taken by Margaret Long. Others in the cast included Wilfrid Fletcher as Mr Bowker, Beatrice Varley as Mrs Williams, Charles Lamb as Freddy Williams, Dorothy Smith as Maggie Mackenzie, Gladys Young as a family friend plus Judith Fellows, John McLaren and Alec Ross.

Others who appeared in Front Line Family and found post-war acting fame were Harry Fowler who played a young lad called Charlie Williams who was always getting into trouble and worrying that the war would end before he was old enough to fly a bomber; Joy Shelton, co-starring as PC Archibald Berkeley-Willoughby’s girlfriend Joan in The Adventures of PC 49, and Jean Anderson, best remembered as Mary Hammond in BBC tv’s The Brothers.

Each episode would end with a cliff-hanger explained Melville: “usually a bomb coming down on what was obviously going to be a direct hit (it wasn’t) or the news that Mrs Robinson’s sister’s semi-detached had been hit by an incendiary and was a raging inferno with Mrs Robinson’s sister trapped in the upstairs bedroom or that young Andy Robinson in Fighter Command had been reported shot down over enemy territory.”   

The serial was proving so successful that by late 1941 it was also carried by the Pacific and African Services as well as on the General Overseas Service (now the World Service) itself. It was possible for short-wave listeners in the UK to tune in, which many did. It was also re-broadcast by radio stations in Canada though not, it seems, by any in the USA. 

By May 1942 the BBC noted that Front Line Family “seems to have created more general interest than any other programme except the news, the talks by Priestley and Wickham Steed and possibly Newsreel”. There’s a story that when a BBC official visited Field Marshall Montgomery’s caravan, Monty’s first words were: “I’ve a bone to pick with you. Why have you changed the time of The Robinsons so that we can’t hear them?” 

It was also reported that during the war two American women were interned in Italy and wrote to the BBC: “As enemy aliens in an enemy land we risked the death penalty over four years in order to listen to Front Line Family. Even when bombs were falling and shells whistling overhead, we never missed a single instalment.”

Remarkably two episodes of Front Line Family have survived (they were recorded on discs at the time). A clip from an episode is on BBC Sounds under History of the BBC, however that full episode can be found under the World Service Audio webpage maintained by Sean Saunders and taken from tapes donated by former World Service broadcaster, the late Andrew Piper. In the episode from 13 June 1941 (the BBC website is wrong on two counts: the date is not 4 July 1941 and the station is not the National Programme) a German fighter plane crash lands whilst John and Andy are on their way home, there are some other domestic scenes in which we hear the rest of the family and finally there’s one of the cliff-hangers that Melville mentions. In a second episode, number 59, from 4 July 1941 the story is all about Andy who has started his RAF training – he would later become a Squadron Leader.

The first Radio Times billing for the serial
on the Light Programme 30 July 1945

The end of hostilities could have also spelled the end of the Front Line Family, but it was to enjoy a post-war civilian existence. This decision didn’t enjoy the full support of everyone in the BBC. Famously the Head of Drama, Val Gielgud, was against such “ludicrous”’ American style serials which he saw as ”the lowest common denominator” and that it diverted production staff and time away from more worthy productions. In an internal memo he wrote that: “Front Line Family, as it stands, is not a programme fit for any home service” and concluded that “we shall be creating a Frankenstein monster whose influence upon programmes will be bad, though its popularity may be immediately good”.

But Gielgud was overruled by the man who had originally commissioned it, Maurice Gorham, who was now the controller of the new Light Programme and wanted a regular drama serial in its schedules. So on Monday 30 July 1945, the second day of broadcasting on the Light Programme, the drama continued in an early afternoon slot five days a week with much the same cast as before and now billed as The Robinson Family. It would also continue to be heard on the General Overseas Service. 

Much like the wartime broadcasts the cast of The Robinson Family was not widely advertised on air or in print, the Radio Times, for instance, never published a cast list. One can only assume this stems from Val Gielgud who wrote in a memo to Gorham: “When you consider that the type of actors employed will be those of about the third rank – for no-one above that would accept an engagement of this kind – it is clear that they will see themselves provided with a comfortable livelihood for which, ultimately, they will be able to demand salaries equivalent, for example, to the best people in our Repertory.”

However, I have traced a few names of those who appeared in the serial including Shelagh Kennedy as the Irish maid Biddy Sullivan, Dick’s wife Connie was played by Joyce Heron, Janet Barrow as Aunt Maud, Olwen Brookes as Mrs Blair plus Susan Scott, Thea Wells and John Carol. The narrator of The Robinson Family was Douglas Burbidge and in later episodes Ellis Powell appeared as Mrs Williams, both would go on to star in Mrs Dale’s Diary as Jim and Mary Dale.   

By March 1946 Front Line Family and The Robinson Family had jointly clocked up 1,300 episodes. On 23 July of that year the characters of Mr and Mrs Robinson made an appearance on television in a broadcast from Alexandra Palace in which a Ministry of Food official talked about bread rationing and ration books. Mr and Mrs Robinson were there to ask the official about the food coupons. In one episode Sir Malcolm Sargent is supposed to have made an anonymous appearance

The afternoon audience was over 3.5 million, with the loyal listeners welcoming the Robinsons as friends: “A crisis in the family brings advice in the next post. An injury to some member of the family brings sympathetic letters and telephone calls. When Mrs Robinson was ill once, there were extremists who wired threats of reprisals if she was allowed to die.” (Daily Express 29.4.46)

From 31 March 1947 the title was changed to just The Robinsons by which time the drama department had created a separate division to handle drama serials (Dick Barton-Special Agent having started the previous October).

Very few script writers, of which there were about 15 in total, get credited in the pages of the Radio Times but they included Ronald Gow, Adrian Thomas A.W. Colley, Lesley Wilson, Ted Willis and Jonquli Antony. Both Willis and Antony would write for Mrs Dale’s Diary. Joan Littlewood, of Theatre Workshop fame, provided scripts. In her autobiography it gets the briefest of mentions: “Marjorie (BBC producer Marjorie Banks) managed to get me a temporary pass. We wrote a series between us, Front Line Family, precursor of today’ soaps.”

By October 1947 the BBC revealed that The Robinsons would be coming off air at the end of the year. It appears that tensions regarding the production – the continuing battle between Drama department and the Light Programme management – rather than a drop in listeners led to its demise. It was ironic then that its replacement, Mrs Dale’s Diary, was yet another domestic drama that would ultimately run for 21 years.

And so, after seven years, on Christmas Eve 1947, The Robinsons were heard celebrating their last Christmas. There were protests, if a little muted, with the BBC receiving just over 200 letters in the January mourning the loss.

But that wasn’t quite the end of the Robinson family saga as, in 1948, Jonquil Antony and Lesley Wilson wrote a follow-up novel The Robinson Family. Later that year Antony also wrote a stage version of The Robinson Family that had a short run with Nell Ballantyne in the cast. It was revived in August 1949 in Belfast and then toured English theatres through until the following January. This touring version starred Hylton Allen and Renee Kelly as Mr and Mrs Richardson. And with that the Robinsons disappeared into post-war oblivion.