75 Years of BBC Television

This blog normally concerns itself with radio matters but tomorrow marks the 75^th anniversary of BBC television.

Unlike the 50^th anniversary the BBC, usually never ones to miss marking significant milestones in their history, have gone for a very low-key affair – just a few pages in this week’s Radio Times and an evening of repeats on BBC4.  

If you want to see what BBC TV, and ITV and Channel 4, looked like back in 1988 then head over to my other blog. I’m recalling the day when the British Film Institute and all the major broadcasters ran the One Day in the Life of Television project.

Download the first television issue of the Radio Times here:
http://www.radiotimesarchive.co.uk/pdf/RT0682-LON-72dpi.pdf

Don't Forget...

…to put back your clocks one hour tonight.

As summer time hours end in the UK and across Europe tonight how about a reminder of the days when the Radio Times used to produce what it rather cosily called its Fireside Issue.

The BBC marks the top of the hour with the pips and still occasionally broadcasts the chimes of Big Ben, most notably at 6 p.m. and midnight on Radio 4. But I was reminded of the occasions when Big Ben was out of action when I received an email earlier this year asking me about Great Tom.

Great Tom did indeed ring a bell! It was in 1977 that Big Ben was under repair and the BBC would broadcast the bell Great Tom at St Paul’s Cathedral. It just so happened to have been used on Radio 3 on Sunday mornings before the news summary  and by chance I have a recording I made that year.

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Great Tom had been broadcast regularly before back in 1956 when, I assume, Big Ben was out of commission.

Radio Times 9 December 1956

Down Your Local - Radio Victory

This is the fifteenth post in a series looking at the original nineteen ILR stations. This week Radio Victory.

Airdate: 14 October 1975

Still on air?: No, closed in 1986

Radio Victory was the first of the original ILR stations to lose its licence, replaced from 28 June 1986 by Ocean Sound. Its early history is interesting and for such a small station it was well supplied with ex-BBC staff due, in no small part, to its first Programme Controller being former Radio 1 DJ David Symonds. David declared that his programme policy was to meet with the DJs and discuss with them the timeslots they each felt best they could do. His stay at Victory was, however, short-lived.

David’s early appointments included Dave Christian from Radio Luxembourg and Eugene Fraser as presenter and Assistant Head of Programmes from the BBC. Eugene had been a newsreader and presenter on Radio 2 (Night Ride, Brass and Strings etc.) and would return to the BBC as a newsreader on Radio 4. Former Light Programme and Radio 1 DJ Don Moss also joined in 1976 to present Don Moss’s Sunday Jaunt.

During 1975 and 1976 Victory even had Kenny Everett as one of its presenters. Kenny provided pre-recorded shows for the station and inevitably created some bespoke jingles in his home studio.

When Victory first went on air it was DJ Glenn Richards who made the opening announcement. Glenn would later make the occasional appearance on Radio 2 on the BBC Radio Orchestra shows and later, by now known as CJ, present on DevonAir.

Read more about David Symond’s career in this post.

Here’s the Radio Guide programme listings published in December 1977:

What a packed and varied schedule Victory had with 40 different programmes across the week including jazz, folk, rock ‘n’ roll, classical, religion, motoring, quizzes, gardening, fishing and antiques.

Folk & Us presenter was comedian and singer Shep Woolley. With a motoring programme was former Formula 3 champion and rally driver Jean Denton, later Baroness Denton of Wakefield.

Breakfast Show presenter Howard Pearce would later go on to work at Radio 210, Luxembourg, Radio 2, Mercury, VH1, Sky Sports, Virgin, Jazz FM, Smooth and Silverstone Radio.

With the mid-morning Trends (the name of a feature on Round the Horne if I recall) was Christine, better known as Chrissie, Pollard. Starting as a reporter on the Western Daily Press and Bristol Evening Post she got her taste for broadcasting as a reporter for the BBC in Birmingham. There followed stints for the BFBS in Cologne and then Malta, co-presenting The Five O’Clock Run with David Burrows. Back in the UK Chrissie was at Victory and then at TVS in Southampton as one of the co-anchors of Coast to Coast. Due to family connection with South Africa she spent time training would-be broadcasters at CCFM, a Christian radio station in Cape Town. Still broadcasting Chrissie was on Hope FM in Bournemouth and can be heard on Offshore Music Radio and occasionally on BBC Radio Solent. 

Jack McLaughlin (aka Yak MacFisheries, aka The Laird of Cowcaddens) had been a pirate DJ on Radio Scotland, Britain Radio, Radio 390 and Radio 270 (under the name Steve Taylor).He went legit and was with the original team at Radio Clyde and also worked as an announcer/presenter on Grampian Television and STV (Pop Scotch, Thingummyjig and Junior Try for Ten) and on BBC Radio 2 (Folk 74 and Folk 75). Whilst at Capital he was poached by David Symonds to join Radio Victory where by 1977 he was Head of Programmes and News. Later Jack would establish Radio Scotland Worldwide Ltd, an internet broadcast company, though as far as I can ascertain this company has been dissolved.  

Anton Darby, known as ‘Dapper Darby’, hosted Darby Day (oh, those punning ILR programme titles again). Anton had trained as an actor and had appeared in such TV programmes as The Wednesday Play and Softly Softly. After his spell on radio he continued to work in TV both as an actor and behind the scenes – I spotted his name as ASM when recently watching some old episodes of The Darling Buds of May. 

Dave Christian (real name David Crockford) returned to the Grand Duchy, again working for RTL but this time broadcasting on the French and German services. Dave died in 2010.

Tea Time Treat host Andy Ferris was another ex-BBC member of the team, he’d been on Radio 1 alongside David Symonds and others as one of the presenters of Sounds of the Seventies as well as being on the review programme What’s New. Does anyone know what subsequently became of Andy?

Nicky Jackson, as he was then known, was taken on as a trainee DJ having worked in the discos of Portsmouth. Later as Nick Jackson he joined Radio 2 as an announcer/newsreader and presenter (Star Sound and You and the Night and the Music). You’ll also hear his voice on old episodes of Celebrity Squares and Catchphrase.

Presenter of The Wonderful Wobbly Wireless Show was Sarah Ward who was well known to Capital Radio listeners and to those of the BBC World Service. Sarah had cut her broadcasting teeth on the BFBS in Nairobi before joining The Voice of Kenya and then as a BBC announcer and presenter of Junior Points of View. These days Sarah can be heard on Jazz FM with the daily Dinner Jazz.

Dave Carson would go to host Victory’s Breakfast Show and then run entertainment agency Accolade Productions in Southampton. Daughter Lucy is a singer and son Jon runs an entertainment business. 

With Fish on Sunday (surely you have fish on a Friday?) was Tony Fish. Tony left school to work as a TV repair man before joining the BBC in 1970 as a technical operator. Four years later he was at Radio 1working in production before joining BBC Radio London doing their traffic reports. In April 1975 he presented the Breakfast Show at that station and then later that year Home Run. At the same time he was on Victory with his Sunday morning show. Tony became a tutor at the BBC Radio Training Unit before moving into BBC local radio management, first at BBC Radio York, then Newcastle and Shropshire. He retired in 2002 and died suddenly in 2005.

Presenting a couple of shows on Saturday evening was Keith Butler. Keith would go on to be a very popular DJ at Radio 210 followed by Capital Gold, Easy Radio and finally Time 106.6. He died unexpectedly in 2008.

Radio Victory Goes Off Air 1986

This is the station information published in January 1978:

Web Links

This is ILR - Victory Tribute Pages

Keith Butler Tribute on YouTube

DJ audio courtesy of Ingemar Lindqvist and Paul Stenning.

Radio Active – Unexpurgated

Hello Mary…Hello June.

This isn’t a post about the current single by Marina and the Diamonds but Radio Active, Britain’s only national local radio station that was the Radio 4 hit comedy show between 1980 and 1987. This is the programme that introduced us to Mike Channel, Mike Flex, Anna Daptor, Martin Fry, Nigel Pry, The Hee Bee Gee Bees, Sir Norman Tonsil and the rest.

Back in 1987 the third programme in series 3 (God Alone Knows) was broadcast as usual on the Saturday but due to many complaints the Wednesday repeat, and all subsequent repeats, went out in an edited form. Yet again mocking religion got the broadcasters into trouble.

I only became aware of this chapter in Radio Active’s history when  reading on an internet forum that someone was looking for this particular episode. Wikipedia notes the following changes to the original programme:    

“…in the broadcast church service near the start of the episode the inability of any of the congregation to recite the Lord’s prayer correctly was replaced with a request for two girls in the front row to turn off their Sony Walkmans. The new translation of the Bible was also heavily edited, the new 10 commandments were changed to remove two which were originally of a sexual nature (replaced by "thou shalt not listen to the Beastie Boys” and "thou shalt not support Arsenal"). A description of the cover was deleted completely. To make up the lost time the preceding article was lengthened with a few extra lines”.

As chance would have it I have that original unexpurgated version and here, for the first time in 24 years, it is:

This post was brought to you by Honest Ron. If you have a complaint please telephone this number:

Further reading:

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/radioactive.html

Down Your Local - Pennine Radio

This is the fourteenth post in a series looking at the original nineteen ILR stations. This week Pennine Radio.

Airdate: 16 September 1975

Still on air?: No, rebranded as The Pulse in 1991.

There’s a bit of friendly rivalry between the cities of Leeds and Bradford but it was the latter that got the first ILR station when Pennine went on air in 1975, probably because the BBC already had studios in Leeds. Radio Aire did launch in 1981.

Here’s the Radio Guide programme listings published in December 1977:

Viewers of Look North from Hull will recognise the photo bottom right of a young Peter Levy. Peter is still broadcasting on the radio every day in almost the same time slot as 34 years ago between noon and 2 p.m. on Radio Humberside.

In fact Peter Levy started his career as an actor appearing in programmes such as Dixon of Dock Green, Comedy Playhouse and The Mike Yarwood Show. Pennine was his first radio job but he has been on air in the North ever since, presenting City Extra at Liverpool’s Radio City and then moving to Radio Aire and BBC Radio Leeds. Whilst at Leeds he started doing the odd bulletin for Look North, eventually becoming a full-time presenter.

Presenting Pennine’s Breakfast Show Early with Hurley was Mike Hurley. Mike joined the station form a Leeds advertising agency. But he became best known for his show Hurley Burley, first on Radio Aire and then for many years on BBC Radio Humberside. His most famous invention was Bill Bore, “the archetypal, flat capped, opinionated Yorkshireman.” Mike went on to win a Sony Award for his show and combined his broadcasting with advertising voiceover work. He died in 2008.

Stewart Francis was a club DJ who took a turn on pirate radio and at Radio 1 before moving to LBC to host Nightline. He recalls how, whilst covering the University Boat Race for IRN, his boat was rammed by a BBC TV launch and Stewart dropped his microphone into the Thames. He was a presenter and programme supervisor at Pennine and later was managing director at KL.FM 96.7 in Kings Lynn.

Roger Kirk had been a technical operator at Radio 1 and did get one of the many try-out slots they had in the early 70s but didn’t get a regular programme. Moving to Radio Nordsee International he managed just one show before sea sickness forced him to work back on the mainland over in Holland. He joined Capital Radio as an engineer when it started in 1973 before moving up to Bradford. Later he was on Hallam, Viking, Classic Gold, Stray FM and Magic 828. Roger died in 2001.

Further information about four Pennine broadcasters has so far eluded me. I can find out nothing about Julius K Scragg other than his real name was Jack Maher and nothing too about Dorothy Box, Paul Needle and John Drake. If you know anything about these presenters please contact me.

The Fraser Hines Request Show was a Sunday lunchtime fixture. Fraser had been playing Joe Sugden on YTV’s Emmerdale Farm since ’72 and was well-known prior to that as Doctor Who’s sidekick Jamie.

Sunday evenings brought Tops and Noils with Austin Mitchell and Keith Marsden, a programme of “Yorkshire humour, poetry and music”. Austin was well known to Yorkshire folk as one of the presenters on the ITV regional news magazine Calendar and from 1977 he became the MP for Great Grimsby. Incidentally ‘tops’ and ‘noils’ are terms used in the spinning industry, so important to Bradford’s industrial growth.

This is the station information published in January 1978:

Web Links

Pennine Jingles

The Impressionists

I was watching yet another energetic performance by Lee Evans on The Jonathan Ross Show the other week, Lee was recalling the days when his comedian dad Dave used to tour the clubs. That TV appearance reminded that Dave also did impressions and was a regular guest on the Radio 2 show The Impressionists.

In this edition from 1981 the chairman is Ray Alan (of Lord Charles fame), who had replaced the original chair Barry Took. Doing the impressions alongside Dave Evans are Aiden J. Harvey and Johnny More, who you may remember from the 1970s ITV series Who Do You Do? Fourth on the panel was David Jason. That year David was on the cusp of TV stardom as Del Boy, although he’d already done plenty of telly (Open All Hours and Porridge) and was still a regular on radio with his series The Jason Explanation and had been providing comedy voices and impressions on Radio 4’s Week Ending since 1970.

This programme was first broadcast on Thursday 4 June 1981.

Funny You Should Ask - Betty Driver

Funny You Should Ask was the Radio 2 entertainment quiz that ran from the mid 1970s to the mid 80s.

Under the somewhat shambolic chairmanship of Peter Jones the quiz was essentially a chance for entertainers to provide a few amusing anecdotes about their career; a good story mattered more than the score.

In this programme, first broadcast on 28 June 1982, you’ll hear from Betty Driver, Ken Dodd and Ken Platt. I’m posting this programme by way of tribute to Betty who died earlier today. Although mainly associated with Coronation Street Betty had a long career as a singer and appeared on stage, in film and on the radio. Her radio series A Date with Betty was scripted by a young Bob Monkhouse.