The Story of the Light

On Saturday 28 July 1945 the BBC closed the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme (AEF) and, at least for domestic listeners, the General Forces Programme (GFP). The following day Sunday 29 July, as the BBC week at that time began on a Sunday, regional broadcasting returned to the Home Service and a new station came on air, the BBC Light Programme.

The Light Programme was carried on 1500m (200 kHz) long wave from Droitwich (with some filling-in on 261m MW), the first time long wave transmitters had been used for domestic broadcasts since before the war. Immediately before the Light came on air 1500m had been used by the European Service. 

A number of GFP entertainment shows were carried over to the Light: from Variety Bandbox and Music While You Work to Grand Hotel and ITMA. By the following year programmes such as Family Favourites, Housewives Choice and Woman’s Hour had been commissioned, programmes which helped to define the Light and give it some of radio’s largest audiences

It would be lovely to bring you some of the highlights of that first day of broadcasting on the Light but sadly the BBC kept just 50 seconds. That recording features the voice of Chief Assistant Tom Chalmers (he’d become the Controller of the network three years later) followed by the start of a news bulletin read by Alvar Lidell. In Tom’s opening announcement there was the word ‘entertainment’ right from the off:

Good morning everyone, this is the BBC Light Programme on wavelengths of 1500 and 261 metres. It’s the first time we’ve said those words, BBC Light Programme, which we hope are going to mean for you now, and in the days to come, all that is best in radio entertainment from nine o’clock in the morning till midnight.

  

By way of contrast the BBC did retain the last programmes transmitted on the AEF including the hour long Farewell AEF and the final moments with the news read by Guy Belmont, prayers from the Rev V Russell and announcer Margaret Hubble. A minute or so of Marjorie Anderson closing the General Forces Programme has also survived. In case you’re wondering, over on the Home Service the only surviving archive is that of Regional Director Melville Dinwiddie welcoming listeners to the Scottish Home Service.  

This year marks the 80^th anniversary of the launch of the Light in 1945, a network that would broadcast for the next 22 years until its demise in September 1967 and the arrival of Radios 1 and 2. The BBC are not marking the anniversary, though Boom Radio are when David Hamilton recalls listening to the Light and appearing on it in a programme airing at 9pm on Tuesday 29 July. However, in 2017 on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of BBC Radio 2 did tell The Story of the Light in a two-part programme presented by Paul O’Grady.  

The first episode of The Story of the Light was broadcast on 18 September 2017. You’ll hear reminiscences from (in order of appearance) Nicholas Parsons, Petula Clark, Denis Norden, Esther Rantzen, Tony Blackburn, Ken Bruce, Pete Murray, June Whitfield, Paul Hollingdale, Barry Cryer,  Owen Money, Johnny Beerling, Angela Rippon, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Judith Chalmers. 

In this first show a number of contributors refer the BBC‘s ‘forces programme’. The term seems to be used interchangeably for two distinct services. The history gets a bit complicated here so this is my attempt to summarise it. 

There was the Allied Expeditionary Service, an Anglo-American station (half British and Canadian and half American in content) aimed at troops in north-west Europe that ran from 7 June 1944 to 28 July 1945 (see my June 2014 post Oranges and Lemons). This service had been inspired by the American Forces Network which had started on 4 July 1943 and used several low-power transmitters to provide entertainment for US troops based in the UK. The AFN featured mainly American programmes, many of them shipped in from the States, as well as relaying some BBC programmes. The BBC would start to re-broadcast the AFN on its shortwave transmitters.     

The other more home-grown service was the General Forces Programme. This had started on Sunday 27 February 1944 and was an amalgam of what had been the Forces Programme plus programmes from the General Overseas Service (what would eventually become the World Service).  The Forces Programme itself had started on Sunday 7 January 1940 initially offering some evening alternatives to the Home Service but broadcasting all day later that year.  The General Forces Programme didn’t end when the Light Programme launched and continued on short-wave for members of the forces overseas. It shared programmes and resources with the General Overseas Service as well as taking some programmes from the Home and Light. The title General Forces Programme was dropped after 31 December 1946.   

The second episode of The Story of the Light was broadcast on 25 September 2017. Adding their memories are Ken Bruce, Esther Rantzen, David Hamilton, Russell Davies, Pete Murray, Angela Rippon, Paul Hollingdale, Judith Chalmers, Johnnie Walker, Barry Cryer, Tony Blackburn, Petula Clark, Brian Reynolds, Gerald Jackson, Brian Matthew and Johnny Beerling.

The Story of the Light was produced by Derek Webster and Ashley Byrne and was a Made in Manchester Production for BBC Radio 2.     

The passage of time does, of course, mean that some memories can get a little muddled. In case you’re taking notes In Town Tonight was never on the Light Programme but on the Home Service.

For more on the Light Programme head back to my blog posts On the Light published in July and August 2015 plus more recent posts Back in Time on the Light and this year on the subject of The Robinson Family, Go Man Go, Mrs Dale’s Diary and Make Way for Music.

Announcer and presenter Roger Moffat, on duty for the last programme on the Light, read the news bulletin at 2am on Saturday 30 September 1967 to close down the station for final time. “There we end broadcasting in the Light Programme, not just for today but, as it seems, forever.”

Make Way for Music

One of the mainstays of the BBC Light Programme were the shows featuring the in-house orchestras, whether it was the Concert Orchestra on Friday Night is Music Night or the Midland Light Orchestra with a medley of Morning Music. But by far one of the most popular, even making the transition to television, was Make Way for Music. Featuring the talented musicians of the Northern Dance Orchestra, the conductor Alyn Ainsworth, singer Sheila Buxton and, most of all, the announcer Roger Moffat, became household names in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This is the story of that show. 

When Make Way for Music premiered on the Light Programme in 1955 the music was provided by the BBC Northern Variety Orchestra. After the string section was disbanded in 1956 it became the Northern Dance Orchestra, a title it retained until 1974. The Northern Variety Orchestra had been formed in 1951 and started broadcasting from April that year. It had been brought together under the direction of composer, arranger and conductor Ray Martin. As Ray was London-based, he was also working for EMI at the time, he handed over the baton to Vilem Tausky, with Alyn Ainsworth (pictured below) as his deputy.  When Tausky was appointed associate conductor of the Northern Orchestra in October 1952 his place as principal conductor of the NVO went to Ainsworth.

There was, in fact, another short-lived Northern Variety Orchestra formed in 1948 with conductor Toni Script (always billed simply as ‘Toni’) who’d been music al director of Blackpool’s North Pier Orchestra. It was wound up in the spring of 1949.  

Alyn Ainsworth’s first taste of show business was in the late 1930s as a boy soprano (‘the boy with the wonder voice’) with the Herman Darewski and his Band. Post-war he was an arranger for the Oscar Rabin Band (see my blog post Go Man Go) and Geraldo and led the big band The Falcons. His first radio broadcast was with The Falcons in the North Home Service in June 1950. By the following year he was conducting the Northern Variety Orchestra on programmes such as Melody Highway and the popular Blackpool Night (on the Light) and the variety show The Spice of Life (Home Service).  He also conducted for BBC TV’s The Good Old Days and Top Town, both produced by Barney Colehan, and Morecambe and Wise’s first radio series You’re Only Young Once.

In 1954 Ainsworth started to work with announcer Roger Moffat and singer Les Howard on the Light Programme early evening entertainment The Night is Young, the forerunner to Make Way for Music. His arrangements for the NVO and NDO were described as “impressive, often spectacular and always original”. (The Stage) He resigned from the NDO in 1960 due to ill health (chronic neuritis) but later that year signed up with Granada TV as musical director on Spot the Tune. This was the start of a long association with TV shows, as musical director for BBC Light Entertainment in the 60s and at LWT in the 80s. He was the regular conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra between 1974 and 1978.   

A billing from 26 March 1960

Make Way for Music first appears on the Light on Friday 13 May 1955 with Roger Moffat making the announcements and with singers Les Howard and Barbara Law, both regular singers with the NDO. Les and would continue to appear with the Orchestra into the early 1970s. The show aired on Friday teatimes, usually 5 o’clock, until December 1957 when it moved to Friday lunchtimes. The shows were recorded in the BBC studios at the Playhouse Theatre in Hulme, Manchester.  

The singer most associated with Make Way for Music was Manchester-born Sheila Buxton. She’d already broadcast for BBC radio on Worker’s Playtime, Midday Music Hall and with Jimmy Clitheroe in Call Boy, as well as dozens of TV appearances for both the BBC and ITV before joining the show in January 1957. In 1958 she signed to Bob Monkhouse and Denis Goddwin’s agency and shortly after with the Top Rank record label.

But what set aside Make Way for Music from the other BBC music shows were the humorous announcements and banter with musicians and singers from staff announcer Roger Moffat, “spelt with one T – I’m fussy about that”. As he told the press in 1959 “I have a warped sense of humour. I enjoy sticking my neck out. I find it fun”. He opened each show with the announcement “Wherever you are, whoever you are, make way for music.”

Roger Moffat illustration by Jan Parker for
the Sunday Mirror 5 March 1973

Moffat had joined the BBC’s announcing team in Manchester in July 1951(after a spell at Radio Luxembourg) doing the usual mix of continuity announcing, news reading and programme introductions. He first worked with Alyn Ainsworth and the NVO on the aforementioned The Night is Young and continued to appear with Alyn and the NDO on shows such as This is You Saturday Date, Melody Matinee, Star Train and Saturday Night on the Light. In the 50s and 60s Roger made hundreds of appearances introducing  programmes on both the Light and Home Service too numerous to list but they included Laughter Incorprated, another forgotten Morecambe and Wise show, Music-Hall, Music on the Menu, Northern editions of Worker’s Playtime, Music on the Move, Stay Late and Midday Spin. He made the introductions on dozens of episodes of The Clitheroe Kid. In 1960 Roger appeared in the first TV series for Pinky and Perky called Pop Parade with Roger playing the announcer at Station P.O.P. who is constantly interrupted by the porcine puppets.

By the mid-60s Roger was now London-based covering the usual mix of continuity work, reading bulletins and taking turns hosting regular music shows like Music Through Midnight and Double Spin. He was on duty for the last night of the Light Programme and made the closing announcement in the early hours of Saturday 30 September 1967. He continued to work for Radio 1 and Radio 2 on Night Ride, The Joe Loss Show and Things are Swingin’. But the ad-libs and on-air buffoonery all came to an end in July 1971 when he was given the sack after some joking with colleague Keith Skues about the shipping forecast. Apparently jokes about Gale Force 28½ were beyond the pale. He spent the next two years on the dole before Keith Skues, now Programme Director at ILR station Radio Hallam, offered him a job on the breakfast show. He quit Hallam in December 1981 but worked briefly for BBC Radio Sheffield two years later. A notoriously heavy drinker, he died in impecunious circumstances in 1986.        

Radio Times billing for the first TV broadcast of
Make Way for Music 14 January 1959

I’ve leapt ahead of the story of Make Way for Music. Such was its popularity on the radio that in October 1958 a television pilot was filmed which was given the green-light for a series by light entertainment executive Eric Maschwitz. The first TV version aired on the BBC on 14 January 1959 in an initial run of four fortnightly shows. That run kept getting extended and it was broadcast through to December, with a further short series following in the summer of 1960, clocking up 26 programmes in total.

Ahead of the first show the Manchester Evening News set the scene for the TV version which ‘aims to show the orchestra in its working clothes-the players grouped as they would be for a radio show in a shirt-sleeves-and-sweaters atmosphere. Cameras will move round picking up unexpected expressions and odd angles. The music-crisp, clean and often witty-speaks volumes for the group’s cheerful teamwork. And it fits the mood of the feature which gives the show its special flavour – the unscripted, off-beat and often insulting comments of announcer Roger Moffat in between the numbers’.    

Sheila Buxton featured in Picturegoer 5 April 1958

The TV version featuring the vocal talents of Sheila Buxton plus Roberto Cardinali. Tenor Cardinali (who also performed under the name Vincent Roberto) had first appeared in the North Region’s Time to Celebrate programme in January 1959 and flew over from Zurich, where he was in cabaret, for the recordings. The producer was Barney Colehan.

Following the first TV broadcast of Make Way for Music 800 letters poured in and there were thousands later. Moffat told the press: “I don’t earn any more money. I’ve reached the salary limit for my job as a BBC announcer.” He got offers from ITV and also American TV companies. “These were short-term contracts and if I did not come up to their expectations I should find myself out of a job eventually. But the main reason is that I don’t want to break away from the NDO. I have worked with them for years, and I know them and their families as friends. My life is bound up with them. I don’t like working from a script. Usually I have no idea what I am going to say until the show starts,”

Check out Richard Cawson’s 1960 documentary This is the BBC on YouTube and you’ll spot Alyn Ainsworth and the NDO starting at 26 minutes in with their rendition of On Ilkley Moor bar t'at accompanying shots of Judith Chalmers, David Coleman and others in the BBC restaurant. Roger Moffat appears about two minutes later.

The final radio edition of the original run of Make Way for Music aired on the Light on 29 April 1960. It did, however, return for eight shows in 1970/71 on Radio 2, each one recorded at a different venue in the north of England.  The NDO was now conducted by Bernard Herrmann and the guest singers included Sheila Buxton and Les Howard. The shows were introduced by Stuart Hall, Gay Byrne and, back for four of them, by Roger Moffat.

Little exists of Make Way for Music in the BBC’s archives but some shows were issued by the Transcription Services for overseas stations, though this means they were cut down by about 15 minutes to under 28 minutes duration. It’s one of these shorter versions that was repeated as part of The Golden Days of Radio on Radio 2 in May 1994. Appearing are Sheila Buxton, vocal group The Zodiacs, organist Jimmy Leach and violinist Norman George, who’d led the NDO from the start and would retain this position until 1971 when he joined the Northern Concert Orchestra. This edition is undated other than it was first broadcast in 1960.

The NDO continued to broadcast for the next 14 years featuring in their own programmes such as The N.D.O. Melody Show, contributing to Breakfast Special, Music Through Midnight, Night Ride, Late Night Extra and Top Tunes, as well as providing the music for Ken Dodd and Roy Castle’s comedy shows. In 1974 it was renamed the BBC Northern Radio Orchestra but was disbanded six years later as part of a number of BBC cuts. There’ll be more about the NDO and the NRO in a future post. 

Notes in her Diary

For twenty one year millions of radio listeners were enthralled by the revelations, both mundane and sensational, contained within the pages of Mrs Dale’s Diary. The daily serial revolving around the family and friends of Mary Dale and her doctor husband Jim was one of the BBC Light Programme’s best remembered programmes. 

Mrs Dale’s Diary wasn’t the first soap opera on the Light, that honour fell to The Robinson Family (later The Robinsons), the peacetime version of the Front Line Family (see my April 2025 blog post On the Front Line with the Robinsons). Head of Drama Val Gielgud was keen to replace the Robinsons and “start up a completely new family with a different set of actors and scriptwriters, and if possible a rather less tepid approach.” Mind you he was never happy with the result, labelling it “dramatically inept and sociologically corrupting”. The listeners, however, loved it with over six million (1) tuning it at its peak. It was also a favourite in the Royal household, with Princess Margaret claiming to be a fan and the Queen Mother listening in as “it was the only way to hear what goes on in a middle class family”. The programme became a byword for cosy middle class domesticity and Mrs Dale imploring that she was always “worried about Jim” was a national catchphrase    

When the serial started the plot outlines, main characters and scripts were provided by Ted Willis (under the pseudonym John Bishop) and Jonquil Antony. “It was the BBC’s own idea”, said Antony, “they just handed us a piece of paper saying they wanted a doctor, his wife, son and daughter-in-law. We went on from there.”

Virginia Lodge illustrated in the 
Radio Times 3 January 1958

The first episode aired on the Light Programme on Monday 5 January 1948. The Radio Times painted a picture of what listener’s could expect:

Meet the Dales ...the new radio family (Dr Dale, his wife Mary, their son Bob, and their daughter Gwen) makes its debut at four o’clock on Monday and thereafter its adventures will be broadcast at the same time each day from Mondays to Fridays inclusive under the title Mrs Dale’s Diary.

The Dales live in a cosy house in Kenton, Middlesex, where Dr Dale has been a GP for the last twenty-five years. Bob Dale is twenty-two and just demobilised from the Army; his sister Gwen is three years younger and works in an office in London. Others in the family whom listeners will hear from time to time are Mrs Dale’s sister Sally (a completely contrasting character to Mrs Dale and always a welcome visitor), Katherine Mackintosh, the doctor’s Scots dispenser, Mrs Freeman, Mrs Dale’s mother, who lives nearby, and Mrs Morgan, the domestic ‘help’.

Cleland Finn tells us that for the assistance of the script writers, Jonquil Antony and John Bishop (both of whom had a hand in The Robinsons), the Dale family have been ‘documented’ in great detail – even down to Mrs Dale’s waist measurement!

Heading the cast as Mary Dale was Ellis Powell and as Jim Dale, Douglas Burbridge. Both had appeared in The Robinsons, Ellis as Mrs Williams and Douglas as the narrator. Courtney Hope was Mary’s mother Rosemary Freeman who Jim always referred to “mother in law”. Billy Thatcher was Bob and Virginia Hewett the first Gwen. As the Dales were obviously  well off they also employed a daily help, Mrs Morgan played by Grace Allardyce, and there was also Monument the gardener played by Charles Lamb. Needless to say over the 21 year run the actors came and went and some characters were played by a number of people. Within four years Billy Thatcher had been succeeded by Hugh Latimer, Derek Hart and then Leslie Heritage. In quick succession Gwen was played by Joan Newell and then Beryl Calder, who, in 1951 got married just a month before her character did. Dorothy Lane appeared in the most episodes, originally as one of Dr Dale’s patients from episode seven and then cast as Mrs Freeman when Courtney Hope left after a year or so. She stayed with the serial right through to the last one in 1969.

Even the main character of Dr Dale was played by three actors with James Dale taking over from Douglas Burbridge, who left due to ill health, in June 1954 and finally Charles Simon from 1963. Famously Ellis Powell was replaced as Mrs Dale by Jessie Matthews. More on that anon. (2)

Ellis Powell

The premise of the programme was that Mary Dale was reading excerpts from her diary, acting as a narrator for the listener and thereby introducing the next scene or set of scenes. In this episode, number 162 from 23 August 1948, which is the oldest surviving episode, the Dales are sorting out their house in Kenton ready to make the move to a house called Virginia Lodge in the fictional suburb of Parkwood Hill but Mrs Dale is being overzealous with clearing out.

Very few editions of the programme are in the BBC Sound Archives with numbers in just single figures for Mrs Dale’s Diary and similarly for The Dales, which includes the last full week’s episodes. One that was retained was this episode, number 2548, from January 1958 in which Mrs Dale looks back at past events, in this case what happened in 1954 and 1955. There were similar episodes for other years across the week but for whatever reason this recording was kept.  

Another one that was retained is this oddity, episode 3272, which I uploaded in 2021 and dated as 1 November 1960. Given that Mary Dale refers to the election of JFK as President which happened the following week, I can only assume that the BBC’s date refers to when it was recorded. I also assume they recorded an alternative opening should Nixon have won. Anyway, in this episode Aunt Hestor visits from Canada. Listen out for some decidedly dodgy accents!

In those early years the storylines ranged from Bob joining the TAs, Gwen’s on/off marriage and Mrs Freeman’s car accident to Monument mistaking weed killer for fertiliser and killing off the strawberries, Angeline the goat munching its way through the neighbours flowers and veg plot and a roll of wallpaper being  stolen. When the serial decided to get ‘with it’ in the Sixties the storylines hotted up and listeners hear more about medical matters (from mumps to smear tests and cerebral palsy), adultery, a train crash, death by careless driving and , controversially for the time in 1967, Sally’s husband Richard suddenly coming out as gay. Actors were encouraged to drop the frightfully clipped accents and open up their vowels  

Ted Willis left after the first block of scripts had been delivered and the bulk of the writing fell to Jonquil Antony (who continued to work on the programme until 1963) and three other women who were recruited: Melissa Wood, Lesley Wilson and Joan Carr Jones. This team produced all the scripts for the first five years but in 1953 the BBC was already proposing that the serial be “more topical, up-to-date and outward looking”. The lead time between script completion and recording was cut in half, a new producer, Antony Kearey, was appointed and, when Lesley Wilson went on maternity leave, actor and playwright Basil Dawson was drafted in. He’d previously written for Dick Barton-Special Agent and he told the press at the time:  “The BBC tell me that they want the man’s angle on Mrs Dale’s Diary and I’m going to model the men on real life people.”

When Dawson left two years later Robert Turley joined the writing team. In 1954-55 Hazel Adair was also writing scripts, she’d go on to create the TV soaps Compact and Crossroads. Some now well-known names submitted test scripts to the production team. In 1953 Doris Lessing had a go but it was rejected as “a bit strong for domestic drama”. In 1964 producer Keith Williams was trying to promote new writers and Tom Stoppard wrote five scripts, these were also rejected but Jill Hyem’s showed promise and she joined the team. Both Jill and another Dales writer Alan Downer would create the programme’s successor Waggoner’s Walk. 

Radio Times billing for Mrs Dale Looks Back
6 January 1958

Whilst there was plenty of drama in Mary Dale’s diary, in the early Sixties there was even greater drama behind the scenes at Broadcasting House. In February 1962 it was reported that Mrs Dale and her husband were moving out of the middle class suburb of Parkwood Hill to the fictional bustling industrial town of Exton some 35 miles north of London in “an attempt to knock the snobbery out of the Dales.” The move came about because Dr Dale had secured employment at a group practice and would also attend an industrial health clinic. Initially Mary was not enamoured of Exton: “Oh Jim, what a place. I can smell the soot in the air. We could never live in a place like this-it’s grey and dirty”. (3)

On 26 February 1962 Mrs Dale’s Diary became The Dales. The Radio Times explained the changes:

Listeners will notice that this week’s Mrs Dales Diary becomes The Dales. It is now fourteen years since Mrs Dale first began a diary to keep listeners up to date with the affairs of the family and neighbourhood.

On consideration it has been decided that a change in the manner of narrating the story as it develops will give the writers greater flexibility in introducing listeners to fresh aspects of the Dales’ life. Already many regular listeners who write to the BBC about this famous radio family refer to them as ‘The Dales’.

So, in future, instead of the ‘diary’ opening an announcer will introduce each episode; and the change will be marked by a new signature tune.

That new signature tune was written by Johnny Dankworth and played by his Septet. It replaced the harp glissando played by Marie Goossens that had been in use from the start, Dankworth’s jazz-like composition included a nod to the original at the end. The new theme was not universally liked and the BBC dropped it in July and instead used part of Dance in the Twilight by Eric Coates played by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Vilem Tausky. I don’t have a copy of that recording so in the sequence below I’ve used a much later version played by the Concert Orchestra under the direction of John Wilson. From January 1964 a new specially written theme from Ron Grainer was introduced played by an ‘ad hoc combination’ and used for the remainder of the run.

There was more drama to come in February 1963 with the shock news that both Ellis Powell and James Dale had been dropped from the programme. Before his days as a television dramatist Dennis Potter wrote for the Daily Herald and on 20 February 1963 he had this to say:

Britain’s best known privet hedge could not shield The Dales from the wind of change that is blowing through the BBC. That’s why Mrs Dale (real name Ellis Powel, aged 56) and Dr Dale (actor James Dale, 77 next week) were unceremoniously sacked from the famous radio serial yesterday. They were summoned to the office of the BBC’s head of sound drama, Mr Val Gielgud...and they left with six months tax-free pay and no job.

Mrs Mary Dale was told: “Sorry, but we are making re-adjustments to the programme.” She had played the part since the serial began 15 years ago. Dr Jim Dale was told: “Sorry, but you are too old for the part.” He had been in it for nine years.

In the serial the Dales have just flown off to America. (4) While they are away listeners will have a chance to forget what they sound like.

Why did the BBC put the Dales on a plane, and then drop them overboard? It is not like the old BBC. But there are new ideas being put about at Broadcasting House by young men in tight trousers and brown suede shows. These young men felt increasingly uncomfortable about Mrs Dale. They thought it was like having Queen Victoria to tea. They did not like her cosy, middle-class pleasantries with harmlessly banal tittle-tattle.

As a first step Mrs Dale’s Diary was renamed The Dales and turned into a superior kind of Archers. The programme was given a modish Johnny Dankworth theme tune –dropped after outraged protests from thousands of listeners-and forced to move from the gentile environs of suburban Parkwood Hill to Exton, an industrial town north of London.

The sackings were not the only change announced yesterday. A new producer has been appointed – 39 years-old script writer and actor Peter Bryant, who was Jack Groves in the Groves Family TV serial. One of The Dales’ principal script writers, Robert Turley, has left and will be replaced by Barbara Clegg.

What happens now to the Dales – or rather the ex-Dales? Said Mr Dale: “It is dreadful to be hoofed out like this after working for the BBC for 27 years and playing Dr Dale for nine.” Miss Powell, whose marriage ended in divorce last June, said: “Perhaps TV will give me a chance. I never tried TV because it could have destroyed the listener’s image of me.”

That divorce was from the actor Ralph Truman. It had been a tempestuous marriage and, according to reports in the Sunday papers some weeks later, “she was a sick woman who drank too much, backed horses and had lovers.” (5)  Now unemployed Ellis Powell signed on at her local unemployment exchange. She was working as a cleaner in a West End hotel and also had the promise of work at her friend Freddie Mills’s new night club and was rehearsing for an episode of Hugh and I, though she was not happy in it and kept forgetting her lines. For some time she had suffered chronic pain from Ménière’s disease and she was taking some prescribed pills and a ‘tonic’ but was also self-medicating with gin and whisky. It was this cocktail that had affected her performance as Mrs Dale. Tragically just 11 weeks after getting the sack Ellis was found unconscious in the Marylebone flat and died in hospital 12 hours later. The official cause of death: ‘Cerebral haemorrhage’. Her son, Clive Truman, claimed that she had “tried to put a brave face about losing the part of Mrs Dale. But I know that she felt it more deeply than anyone could possibly tell”.  

Daily Mirror reports on the sacking of Ellis Powell
and James Dale 20 February 1963

So who would be the new Dr and Mrs Dale? Apparently at least a hundred actors were auditioned and an approach had also been made to Elspeth March (previously married to Stewart Granger) but she demurred. On 7 March 1963 the BBC announced that Mrs Dale would be played by Jessie Matthews and Dr Dale by Charles Simon. Charles Simon was a regular radio actor and had been a member of the BBC Drama Repertory Company. (6) Bagging Jessie Matthews was quite a coup as she was a well-known name having been a theatre and film star in the 1930s and 40s and had something of a colourful personal life. Her most famous role was in the musical Ever Green, the film version of which gave her the song with which she’s most associated, Over My Shoulder. The BBC had to pay extra to get Matthews, whilst Ellis Powell was on £30 a week Jessie was enticed into the studio for £65. 

When Matthews got the role producer Peter Bryant said that “there won’t be any changes – only in the way Jessie Matthews plays her role. Her personality is quite different to that of the previous Mrs Dale.” The first appearance of the new couple was on March 18 1963. In the first half-hour after the episode the duty office took just five calls from listeners- three against and two for the new Mrs Dale. Four of them said she sounded too young.

Jessie Matthews

In her 1974 autobiography  titled, naturally enough, Over My Shoulder,  Jessie Matthews makes no secret of her past nervous breakdowns and its seems  that it was her depression  that precipitated the ending of The Dales. Undergoing shock treatment meant that in recordings her lines were underlined in red and Keith Williams, then Head of Serials, had to point to them when it was her time to speak. She was unable to recognise her fellow cast members and she was “too ill to go on at all”.

The axing of The Dales, now broadcast on the Light’s successor Radio 2, was announced in January 1969 with Controller Robin Scott saying “We realise it will mean taking away a slice of life to some people who have followed the serial over 21 years. But we hope listeners will grow to appreciate the new serial just as much”. He added “All things must come to an end and we felt the programme had gone on long enough.” Meanwhile, the scriptwriters were presaging the end of the programme with Dr Dale announcing that he was to give up medicine and retire. In the final weeks only one character was killed off, OJ the odd job man had a heart attack. A total of twenty-three characters appeared in the final instalment.

The Dales cast in 1969

On the programme’s demise Jessie Matthews was quoted as saying; “I had a great admiration for Mrs Dale. I could understand why she had such a big following on radio. Now I shall have more time to look around for other work. But it will take time to sink in.” Later, in her autobiography no reason is given for the end of the serial and she reflected : ‘When The Dales came to its untimely end in 1969 I did not feel unduly downcast. I had been playing Mary Dale for six years, but I had guarded against becoming stale by fitting in other jobs both on television and on the stage. Yet it was sad to say goodbye to the company, we felt rather like a family breaking up.’

As for Charles Simon, he said “It has been a very delightful and lucrative job. We have been assured by the BBC that they will offer us plenty of other work”. Leslie Heritage, who played Bob Dale since 1959 said: “As an actor I found the role gave me a great deal of financial security. It did not mean Jaguar cars, but it does mean that when the show ends I won’t starve.”

Original scriptwriter Jonquil Antony, who worked on the drama for 15 years, was of the opinion that “it was about time the programme came off. Some people will be very upset, but they will accept the decision. I can remember when the predecessor to Mrs Dale, The Robinsons, was taken off. There was uproar. But it all died down.”

Jessie Matthews, Charles Simon and 
Dorothy Lane

The axing of The Dales was mentioned in Parliament on 18 April 1969 as part of the discussion on the British Broadcasting Corporation Bill. Liberal MP Peter Bessell had this to say: 

I received a vast number of letters from all over the country supporting my protest, and, although I had anticipated, or at least hoped for, support, I had not dreamt that it would be as widespread, or that The Dales gave so much comfort to the sick and elderly, or that there were so many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in homes and hospitals for whom Mrs. Dale and her family have become a major part of daily life.

But the protests were to no avail and the last episode, number 5,431, aired on Friday 25 April 1969. The final line went to Mrs Dale as she says “One thing that’s never going to change. I shall always worry about you Jim” The following Monday a new kid was on the block with the start of Waggoner’s Walk.  

In 2012 Penelope Keith, herself an avid listener to the serial, spoke to a number of people who’d worked on Mrs Dale’s Diary and The Dales in a programme titled I’m Rather Worried About Jim.

In this programme we hear from radio critic Gillian Reynolds and then Keith Williams who produced The Dales and went on to be head of serials. Producer/directors interviewed are Betty Davies (who’d worked on the programme in the 1950s and 60s) and Jane Morgan who have some lovely gossip about Dorothy Lane who played Mrs Freeman, plus Martin Jenkins and Andrew Sachs who recalls his time directing Jessie Matthews. (7) Actors featured are Shirley Dixon (at least the 5^th Jenny Dale), Aline Waites (the 4^th Gwen Dale), Peter Baldwin (Corrie’s Derek Wilton) who was a member of the BBC Drama Rep, Elizabeth Proud (Rosie, who famously burnt Mrs Dale’s diary), Gordon Griffin (grandson Billy Owen), Jean Trent (Lois Jackson) and Jim McManus (garage owner Pat Hill). (8). Studio manager Enyd Williams, later a radio drama director, remembers having to create the effect of Mrs Freeman’s cat Captain throwing up. Series writer Jill Hyem recalls the script conferences. (9) I’m Rather Worried About Jim was produced by Angela Hind and was first broadcast on Monday 16 January 2012.  

(1) The 1966 BBC Handbook states that 3.0m heard the afternoon edition and 3.5m the morning repeat

(2) In fact other actors sometimes had to step in to play Dr or Mrs Dale if even for a week or two. Norman Claridge stood in as Jim Dale in 1959. The part of Mary Dale was also taken by Thea Wells in 1948, Noel Dyson in 1963 and Ruth Dunning in 1966 and 1967  

(3) The Dales never did settle in the new town and later moved to a rambling old house in Wells Street in the old town area of Exton 

(4) The Dales really seemed to enjoy holidays beyond the reach of most Light Programme listeners. My perusal of programme synopses shows they also visited Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Malta and ‘Arabia’

(5) Apparently, like her fictional counterpart Ellis Powell kept a diary and it was serialised in The People after her death

(6) By the mid-60s the BBC Drama Repertory Company employed 40 full-time members plus an additional four for English by Radio, six for schools productions, nine for The Archers and four for The Dales. Whilst some members, such as Mary Wimbush, Peter Tuddenham, Timothy West and Diana Olsson had named parts in Radio Times cast lists, the billings often included the wording ‘Other parts played by members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company’

(7) Others who produced The Dales and went to make their name elsewhere include Wyn Knowles (editor of Woman’s Hour 1971-83), Patrick Dromgoole (TV producer and director) and John Tydeman (renowned radio director and head of radio drama 1986-94)

(8) Some actors who appeared in the serial but are better known for other roles include Hattie Jacques who played Mrs Leathers in 1959, Jack Howarth, Albert Tatlock in Coronation Street, played Mr Maggs for over a decade, Clifford Rose, Kessler in Secret Army, played Cliff Barbour, 15-year old Nigel Havers was one of the many actors to play Billy Owen and Bill Treacher, Arthur Fowler in EastEnders played Sydney Pratt. There was also a brief appearance in 1958 for Nicholas Parsons filling in as Bob Dale and for many episodes in the mid-60s Derek Nimmo was Jago Peters, one of Gwen’s boyfriends. 

(9) Other script writers for The Dales included Ray Rigby who went on to write the award-winning screenplay for The Hill, former Dixon of Dock Green writer Rex Edwards and actor Jeffrey Segal who you may recall as Arthur Perkins in TV’s Rentaghost

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