Oh for a few hours - make that weeks - rummaging through the
BBC's Sound Archives. Talk about a kid in a sweetshop. The archive has long
since moved from the fifth floor of Broadcasting House, as mentioned in an
article below, and is now stored in climate controlled vaults in Perivale.
For many years on a Monday morning, in a gap between Today and the 9 o'clock news, Radio 4
used to feature a series of programme, more often than not presented by the
late John Ebdon, that plundered the archive for unusual and quirky nuggets. In
a similar vein this sound clip comes from a short series that aired in 1980 called Keeping Track on "the art, science and business
of sound recording."
Here, the presenter, Peter Clayton, talks to Tony Trebble,
at the time the BBC's Sound Archive Librarian, and asks him to select some of
his favourites pieces from the collection.
I was reminded of this programme when I recently read
about the death, in April last year, of Tony Trebble. There's an obituary for
Tony, written by Glynne Price, in the
February 2016 issue of the BBC's Prospero and also on the Noticeboard for former BBC staff. Part of it reads:
"The first half of his BBC service was in library
services, film and radio, when his reliability and discretion led to him being
entrusted with the confidential recording for posterity of the career
experiences of eminent BBC hierarchs. Moving on to Television Personnel
eventually he settled effectively as a one-man Secretariat to successive
Controllers and as such was ideally well-suited. Affably trustworthy he was
able to deploy his own orderly-mindedness and the precise love of language that
he so much admired in others particularly in navigating the treacherous waters
which separated management and unions. His irrepressible capacity to find
humour in most human dilemmas never succumbed to the many incipient idiocies of
bureaucracy. He was a dependable source of honest counsel for anyone shrewd
enough to seek it".
Back in 1975 Tony was interviewed for the Radio Times by Alexander Frater. Here's
an extract from that article:
"Trebble, a spare, bespectacled , fit-looking man with
an encyclopaedic knowledge of things past, has overall charge of more than
63,000 recordings which cover, quite simply, everything. There are current
affairs, the voices of the famous and descriptions of great occasions.
There is a huge section devoted exclusively to the last war.
There is music of every type, from assorted versions of Messiah to a Greek lady
playing a 'jumping dance' on the bagpipes. There is even a section dealing
entirely with rotten singers and terrible performances. There is also drama,
dialects, social history, special effects and a unique collection of 5,000 bird,
animal and insect noises.
Sound Archives was born in the 1930s, when it was called the
Permanent Library. As well as collecting recordings from the past, they started
carefully recording, for the benefit of future generations, the present as
well. The 1931 Derby commentary was the first they made and today they file
away, for posterity, the best 600 hours from each year's broadcasting.
Sound Archives consists of a small suite of rooms on the
fifth floor of Broadcasting House, fitted with shelves and stacked with
records. Trebble refers to it as his pantry. 'The records are simply
ingredients which are used for mixing into new programmes. We get about 50
requests a day for material which producers want to incorporate into their
current projects'. I asked him what recording appealed to him most. 'A woman in
1941,' he said, without hesitation. 'She had a loud upper-class voice and she
said "First we have to win the war. Then we've got to reconstruct the
world. Quite a task, really." I still think of her in awe.'
Sound Archives intend to continue recording people like that
as long as they can. And as Tony Trebble says, 'When the Millennium comes and
the Last Trump, we shall record that too'."
That mention of "600 hours" each year pales into
comparison with the current acquisition rate of 6,000 per month.
Finally, before I leave the subject of the archive here's a fascinating
Guardian Tech Weekly podcast from
2011 recorded just before the BBC moved from Windmill Road to Perivale:
News this week that Paul Gambaccini is to be the next regular presenter of Pick of the Pops.
He's probably in the studio now practicing those rundowns to At the Sign of the Swinging Cymbal. The announcement is steeped in irony: the post only becoming
vacant because Tony Blackburn was, for some inextricable reason, caught up in
the flak from the Savile Inquiry. Gambo himself was off-air for a year as part
of a 'Yewtree' investigation.
Paul's move to Saturday lunchtime means another show comes to
an end as, on 2 July, he'll present his final American Greatest Hits, a radio regular, on and off, for over 40
years. "Until next week's Paul Gambaccini show plays next week's American
hits, Bruce Springsteen is number one ...."
It's a show I first used to listen to in the mid-70s on Saturday afternoons after Fluff had finished
his rock show. That Radio 1 run ended in 1986. In 1998 he was back, this time
on Radio 2. Here is that first return show from Saturday 18 April 1998, with
Gambo following Johnnie Walker who was also back at the Beeb. The first record,
inevitably, is Bruce Springsteen's Born
to Run, the track that both started and ended the original run of America's Greatest Hits on Radio 1.
This week you can get your annual dose of European pop as
the Eurovision Song Contest rolls into Stockholm. But you didn't always have to
wait so long for your fix of Europop. For twenty years BBC radio offered
monthly, and for a few years weekly, get-togethers with our EBU counterparts.
In this post I recall Pop Over Europe,
European Pop Jury, Nord-ring and Europe 74 to 82.
The European Broadcasting Union had been formed in 1950s and
many of the broadcast exchanges tended to be sports events and concerts or
outside broadcasts that allowed viewers to marvel at the new technology, such
as the 1950 link-up for Calais en fete. The Eurovision Song Contest came along
in 1956 and this led to German radio station Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne
organising a monthly programme showcasing the latest popular music called Music Knows No Frontiers.
By 1963 the BBC had decided to join the party, by which time
the programme was known as Music Has No
Frontiers. The shows were broadcast on the Light Programme and introduced
by Catherine Boyle, presumably chosen on the back of her two appearances as
host of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1960 and 1963.
The four programmes in the series were not just confined to
pop. The Radio Times billed it as
covering "operetta to pop-chart songs." Seven countries took part:
West Germany, Monaco, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and the UK.
Pop Over Europe 1 February 1964
By the time the series returned in February 1964 it had a
new title Pop Over Europe and was heard
pretty much monthly for the remainder of its life. Writing for the Radio Times, BBC producer Edward Nash
was keen to portray a scene of Euro-harmony, even if he's confused about the
number of countries taking part; it was seven not eight.
Aren't people kind?' said Catherine Boyle after the second
programme in the Music Has No Frontiers
series, back in October. prompting the remark was the fact that, unknown to
her, the compere of the Geneva contribution, Vera Florence, had brought to the
studio Catherine's fifteen-year-old brother, Enrico, who is at school there, to
greet her during our pre-broadcast rehearsal.
This friendly, family kind of atmosphere has characterised
every programme; in fact, when we meet in Broadcasting House each month the
initial greetings to and fro across Europe, in a bewildering assortment of
languages, have to be heard to be believed! Gunter Krenz, who holds the reins
of the whole enterprise in West German Radio's studios in Cologne, thrives on
the challenge of this multi-lingual programme and is always seeking to extend
the radio circle - latest newcomers to the chain being the BBC and, from last
month, Radio Ljubljana, Yugoslavia.
The object is simple - a top pop song of the month,
introduced and played from each of the eight stations taking part, adding up to
a programme which gives a cross-section of the European pop scene.
In December 1965 Nash again wrote for the Radio Times:
In two years at the London end of the Pop Over Europe series, it has always been fascinating to watch the
trends and influences in pop styles in the seven countries involved. One thing
stands out--come Beatles, Presleys, Stones, and Hermits - national
characteristics in this type of music remain as ineradicable as ever. The
clangorous Liverpool sound may have conquered many a foreign capital, yet,
strangely, it has left in its wake no local imitators in any way worthy of the
name. In Monte Carlo, for instance, 'yeh-yeh music,' as they call it, aroused
only transitory interest, leaving such adored favourites as Sacha Distel and
Charles Aznavour, albeit joined by newcomers like France Gall, in serene
control. Throughout West Germany and into Austria the star names on
disc are the romantic balladeers, velvet-voiced Peter Alexander and popular Freddy
Quinn. In Italy the local partisanship is even stranger, the hit parade being
dominated by home-bred stars like Gianni Morandi, Gabriella Cinquetti, and Nino
Rossi. This is not to say that the British pop song no longer makes
the grade in Europe-it's still a rare Top Ten there that hasn't a British group
in it, as you may very well hear if you listen to Pop Over Europe this afternoon.
Pop Over Europe
continued monthly on Saturday nights throughout the 1960s and 1970s, on the
Light Programme and then Radio 2, and
changed very little of the years. By late 1966 the countries taking part dropped
by one as Belgium bowed out but by 1969 Hungary and then Ireland joined the
line-up. Portugal's Radio Lisbon was added in 1970, and then Poland the year
after. Whilst Catherine Boyle remained the regular host - she wasn't billed as
Katie until 1971 - David Gell would occasionally take over the hot seat.
Presumably tired of saying bienvenue and willkommen every
week, Katie's stint ended in January 1980 and for the next four years Pop Over Europe was introduced by Marina
von Senger of the BBC's German Service. This is the only clip I have Marina,
indeed it's the only clip I have from the programme's 20-year history. It dates
from 12 July 1980.
The final edition of Pop
Over Europe aired on 16 December 1984, by which time it went out in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Katie Boyle - A Short
Biography
Mention the name Katie Boyle and you might be reminded of
Eurovision, the TV Times agony column
Dear Katie and Camay soap. It's
perhaps no surprise that she was a regular Eurovision
Song Contest presenter and host of Pop
Over Europe when you consider her background and upbringing.
Born in 1926 Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali de Francavilla
had a father who was half Neopolitan and half Russian. Her mother was half
English and half Australian. She was raised in Tuscany and schooled in England,
Italy and Switzerland. On her parent's divorce she also gained Hungarian
nationality as in Italy divorce was still illegal and Hungary seemed to be a
"hospitable and uncritical country".
In 1946 she arrived, with her mother, in London. After
learning shorthand and typing and looking for a job she was spotted by someone
from Woman's Own and offered
modelling work. Catherine continued to model and take occasional acting roles.
Bizarrely her first role was in the film 1950 Old Mother Riley, Headmistress billed as Catherine Carelton - by
now she'd met and married her first husband, army officer Richard Boyle who
also sat in the House of Lords as Baron Carleton.
It was BBC producer Richard Afton that helped launch
Catherine's TV career. He invited her to appear in the Beauty Spot on a new show called Quite Contrary (1953-55). After a couple of a appearances Afton
offered her the presenting role and she was on the way to being one of
Britain's early TV personalities.
Under her first agent Maurice Winnick she became a panel
game regular, a younger version of Barbara Kelly if you will, on BBC and ITV shows
such as The Name's the Same, I've Got a Secret, Tell the Truth and Pick the
Winner plus the Italian version of What's
My Line? known as Che cose fa il
Signor X? She was also a frequent panellist
on Juke Box Jury and had a star
vehicle (plus a Radio Times cover) in two series of Golden Girl (1960-61). Catherine was 'dropped' by the BBC for a
while in 1955 whilst going through a divorce and then second marriage to
Greville Baylis. For ITV she appeared on, amongst other things,
Associated-Televison's admags such as The
Posh Shop and as a Countess in a
1957 Armchair Theatre
production of It Pays to Advertise
(for which, ever photogenic, she gained a TV
Times cover).
In late 1959 Tom Sloan, Head of Light Entertainment,
Television, called Catherine into his office. "I've heard how you switch
from English to French to Italian with the family", he told her. "So
I'm going to let you introduce the Eurovision
Song Contest". Sure enough she presented the show in 1960 and again in
1963, 1968 and 1974. In each case, apart from 1968, the BBC had to step in to
host the contest when the previous winning country backed out with financial
difficulties.
During the 1960s Katie (her billings now varied between
Catherine and Katie) regularly appeared on the BBC Light Programme on disc
shows such as Rendezvous (1962), Just Me (1963-64), Melody Fare (1964 & 1966) as well as Pop Over Europe. On TV she popped up on the panel games Pick the Winner (1964-65), Call My Bluff (1967-70) and even as one
of the commentators alongside David Vine on It's
a Knockout. On BBC Radio 4 Katie frequently joined in the discussion on the
all-women show Petticoat Lane, the Loose Women of its day.
For many years, eighteen in fact, Katie was a TV Times columnist. The original
intention of Dear Katie when it
launched in the 3 October 1970 edition was to provide general advice about
health, the home, fashion, cooking and so on. "Let me make it quite clear
that if this turns out to be any kind of agony column, the agony will be
strictly mine and confined to the physical slog of keeping up with your
letters." Needless to say that within months she was the magazine's agony
aunt. She penned her final column on 17 September 1988 before handing over to
Dr Miriam Stoppard.
There was less TV work for Katie in the 1980s and 90s though
inevitably panel game invites were still on the cards, e.g. Blankety Blank and Punchlines. However radio was once again keeping her busy. On BBC
Radio 2 she was a panellist on Where Were
You in 62? and Back to Square One
and then back as a DJ for a week in 1988, deputising for Desmond Carrington and
Gloria Hunniford before getting her own Saturday afternoon show in January
1990. By the summer of 1990 Katie succeeded Judith Chalmers on the mid-morning
show, in what is now Ken Bruce's timeslot. Those daily shows ran until April
1991. She continued to broadcast for the station with Katie and Friends "a weekly magazine programme for animal
lovers of all ages". (1991-95) The idea for this programme was no doubt
triggered by Katie's long involvement with the Battersea Dog's Home, a charity
she'd supported since the late 60s and continued to do so as a director until 2004.
Katie's last TV appearance, suitably Eurovision-related, was
in a celebrity special edition of The
Weakest Link back in 2004. She celebrates her 90th birthday on the 29th of
this month. (Postscript: Katie died in March 2018 aged 91)
I've posted this audio before but here's Katie presenting 35 Years of Eurovision as heard on BBC
Radio 2 on 5 May 1990.
Nord-Ring
If you imagine a Venn diagram of Europe then there was a
second set of countries, with some overlap with Pop Over Europe. These were the members of the Nord-Ring: the UK,
West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
The Nord-Ring programme history is a little more complicated
but for a large part of its twenty-two year history, 1964 to 1986, it mainly
consisted of joint broadcasts of concerts which, in the 1970s, were part of the
Nordring Festival with entries
competing for the Nordring Radio Prize.
The first programme in the series that provided a
"popular music passport to Northern Europe" aired on the Light
Programme in September 1964. It was a concert from Oslo that included in the
line-up world renowned Belgian harmonica-player Toots Thielmans and Britain's
Mark Wynter, best-known for his cover of Venus
in Blue Jeans. Representing Sweden was the folk singing group The
Hootenanny Singers whose number included one Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Radio Times caption for 17 October 1967
Aside from that concert, the first batch of Nord-Ring shows
were broadcast as part of the Saturday afternoon sequence Saturday Swings, introduced for the BBC by Don Wardell, at that
time a regular DJ over on Radio Luxembourg, but it was Paul Hollingdale who
looked after proceedings for most of the 60s.
The umbrella title of Nord-ring
covered a number of series: Nord-Dance
featuring some of Europe's top orchestras coming from venues ranging from
Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens to Butlins in Bognor Regis! A similar series went out at intervals
between 1965 and 1969 titled Dancing
Round Europe.
BBC producer Geoffrey Owen and John Billingham looked after
most of the early shows. In September 1966 Geoffrey Owen wrote for the Radio Times:
The
radio organisations of the seven countries of Northern Europe which ring the
North Sea have formed themselves into an association called Nord-Ring. The
countries of Nord-Ring are Britain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden
and Norway.
The aim of this association is to promote and encourage the interchange of
popular music between the member countries for the mutual entertainment of
listeners throughout this large community. This year, so far, the Light
Programme has broadcast Nord-Ring productions on New Year's Day and at Easter,
as well as the recent Dancing Round
Europe series. Now Nord-Ring Tour
is presenting, in turn, a concert from each of the seven countries. Tonight the
first programme from Broadcasting House, London, will be simultaneously
transmitted throughout the Nord-Ring area.
The British representatives in tonight's concert are Edmundo Ros and Janie
Marden. They are joined by three young girl singers from Holland, Norway and
Denmark, Conny van Bergen, Elisabeth Granneman and Lise Reinau; by
instrumentalists Henry Arland and Etienne Verschueren from Germany and Belgium;
by the top singer from Sweden, Lasse Loenndal; and Paul Fenoulhet conducts the
Radio Show Band. Paul Hollingdale introduces tonight's concert; he will help
you to share this gay international event with our neighbours across the water.
Nordring productions seem to disappear from the schedules
in 1970 and 1971, it's not clear why, but make a brief re-appearance in the
summer of 1972 when Ray Moore introduces Wonderful
Cophenhagen live over three nights.
From 1973 Nordring
got all competitive with countries seeking to nab the Nordring Radio Prize over a series of specially commissioned
concerts. The BBC's entry in that year, for instance, was arranged by Les Reed,
had a script by Benny Green and was narrated by Marius Goring. These festivals
ran every year until 1984 - the 1983 series being broadcast as part of Saturday Rendezvous.
Dolf van der Linden (left) would often conduct for
the Nordring Festival concerts
Meanwhile Radio 2 started another related series in 1976
called Nordring Roundabout in which David
Gell "introduces a
selection of music from the countries of Northern Europe; followed by some of
the top records from other Continental countries". When David left the BBC
the following year, Andy Cartledge took
over and from 1978 to 1982 Nordring
Roundabout became a feature on the Europe
programmes (see below) with Colin Berry.
To
add to the mix, in 1978, in addition to the Nordring
Festival 1978 series, there's a series of concerts introduced by Len
Jackson under the title Nordring
Rendezvous. These programmes ran at intervals until 1986, with Len also
presenting them as Saturday Rendezvous
in 1983 and 1984 and then reverting back to their original title in 1985 and
1986 with Sheila Tracy.
I'm
not clear what happened to the whole Nordring partnership after 1986. BBC
Genome only makes two more references to it: a 1988 recording of the Finnish
Radio Big Band on Peter Clayton's Sounds
of Jazz and a 1989 Nordring Gala
Concert featuring the BBC Big Band, a German singer and a Dutch pianist.
Nor do I have a single second of any of the Nordring shows. If you happened to
tape one please contact me.
European Pop Jury
Alongside David Gell (right) is David Lucas of the BBC
Gramophone Library and scorer Tricia Madden who went on to join
BBC2's Promotion Team as the 'Colour Television Girl'
European Pop Jury
was radio's equivalent of Juke Box Jury,
but instead of a celebrity panel passing their verdict on the discs it was 200
'jurors' in each country with a push button voting mechanism.
The programme was a Swedish idea, as indeed was the
'mentometer' voting system, introduced for the EBU's 1965 Radio in Europe Week.
BBC producer Johnny Beerling wrote this for the Radio Times when the first one-off edition aired on the Light
Programme in November 1965:
To
the non-fan one pop disc may sound very like another. To the fans, who know the
difference, how do British discs compare with those from other parts of Europe?
This afternoon, a Swedish device called the mentometer will be installed in
Belgium,Britain, Finland,
Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland to measure the response of 1200 jurors to two
records from each of those countries.
The
programme will be broadcast simultaneously in the countries taking part, and
the six juries will vote, giving scores to each record played. The one that is
awarded the most votes will become the top pop of Europe for this week.
In
Sweden the mentometer has been used for four years to pick the regular hit
parade, and it was from that idea that our own Top Ten Game was devised. The European
Pop Jury was suggested by Swedish Radio as part of the European
Broadcasting Union's Radio in Europe Week. Since English is understood in the
participating countries, it was decided to direct the proceedings from London,
and Klas Burling will be coming from Sweden to produce the programme with me.
David Gell will link the other comperes, who will supply local scores and
translations into their own languages where necessary.
David Gell and scorer Jillian Comber
As
Johnny says European Pop Jury wasn't
an entirely original idea as the BBC Light Programme already had a home-grown
version called The Top Ten Game that
had started in June 1965, again using the Mentometer and again with David Gell
presenting and Johnny producing. Johnny told me that he'd got the idea of
sifting through the 60 or 70 weekly new releases and selecting some of the best
for the programme to be put to the public vote. To help with the pre-election
process was he roped in a young Phil ('The Collector') Swern. Johnny had heard
about the voting system from Klas Burling during an EBU meeting. For the
recordings the BBC engineers had to wire up each of the seats at the Paris
Cinema studio with the push-button console. He provided this explanation for
the Radio Times in 1965:
Few
of the many records released every week have that special something which
catches the ear and makes for a place in the best-sellers. In The Top Ten Game we hope to find out
which new records have that special sound, and how they compare with those
already established in the Top Ten. To help us we are using a new Swedish
device called a Mentometer-a sort of opinion-meter-which has two hundred
individual push-buttons: these are distributed to our studio audience. At a
preliminary session, a panel of record-buyers select their ten best new
releases of the week and in the first programme you will hear these ten records
as well as the established Top Ten. After each of the records has been played
our voters will use their push-buttons to register a score on the Mentometer.
At the end of the game the ten records with the highest scores become our
'top-ten' for that week. The following week they will be challenged by ten more
newcomers.
David Gell will attempt to keep order, read the Mentometer, and chat to one or
two guests who may look in, while Jillian Comber from Television's Crackerjack will look after the scoring.
We don't aim to produce yet another Top Ten chart as our show is only a game
but it will be interesting to see how our results compare with the published
charts.
The Top Ten Game ran weekly - every third week
coming from one of the BBC regions - until January 1966.
A
one-off programme, now called European
Top Ten, was broadcast in November 1966 but after that the programme format
lay dormant for a little over a year, returning as European Pop Jury on Radio 2 in February 1968 and then just a
further three shows, this time on Radio 1 in October 1968, June 1969 and
October 1969. Keeping score was Tricia Madden, recently voted as Radio 1's Disc Jockey Derby Dolly - well this was the 60s!
Radio Times article for the programme on
5 October 1968
Yet
again the programme disappeared from the schedules only to re-appear in January
1971 and then monthly for the rest of its run until December 1983. Initially
seven countries took part each time, drawn from the pool of the UK, France, Ireland,
Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Italy, Germany and the
Netherlands. Later Spain and Yugoslavia joined. By the end only six countries
participated on each show.
Very
little of European Pop Jury exists
but there is a full version of the show from 18 September 1976 in circulation
amongst collectors. Here's a taste of that edition in which the jurors vote in
Tina Charles above Abba's Dancing Queen.
They didn't get that one right! The theme is Wishbone Ash's Blind Eye. Readers in Ireland will
recognise the voice of RTE's Larry Grogan.
In
1977 David Gell gave up the show and returned to his native Canada. Filling his
shoes were BBC TV announcer Andy Cartledge and Radio 2 presenters Nick Page and
Don Durbridge. Producer Mel House then auditioned for a permanent host, Andy,
Nick and Don were considered as was David Allan and Colin Berry. It was Colin
that got the gig and with it the Europe
magazine show (see below). This is part of the first of two programmes that Andy Cartledge presented in the summer of 1977.
This is a clip of European
Pop Jury from 17 January 1982. By now the show was recorded in the Concert
Hall at Broadcasting House, though Colin recalls that he had to present two
shows from BRT in Brussels owing to a GPO strike in London.
David Gell - A Short
Biography
Born in Calgary, Canada in 1929 David was already working
for a local radio station by the time he was fifteen, as both a record library
assistant and on-air announcer. He continued to work for a number of stations
in Calgary and Edmonton whilst studying for his degree, ending up as senior
announcer at CKUA in Edmonton.
It was at Calgary station CFAC that he got a posting to
Europe as a foreign correspondent. Based in Paris he travelled widely across
Europe and ended up taking a part-time position as an announcer at Radio
Luxembourg. In the event he stayed with the station for three years (1955-58)
before going freelance.
At Luxembourg he presented various shows including Top Twenty, 208 Swing Club,
The Six O'Clock Record Show, Monday Spin, Hits for Six, Friday Spin, Sound Off and Request Shows. After 1958 he continued to work for the station
until the mid-1960s presenting recorded programmes such as Record
Rendezvous, Meet David Gell and Time to Meet in which he interviewed the
pop and film stars of the day.
Radio Luxembourg programmes for
12 May 1956
Now based in the UK David appeared on commercial TV on Concentration (a Granada quiz show in which contestants "can win fine
prizes if they can remember which objects lie behind which number on the Concentration board), Criss Cross Quiz, Ready Steady Go,Thank
Your Lucky Stars and Needle Match. For the BBC Light Programme and subsequently Radio 2 he presented over 40 different shows
including Music for Sweethearts
(1958-61), Transatlantic Bandbox
(1959-61) and Twelve O'Clock Spin
(1961-64). There were also late-night music like Pop to Bed (1962), Music to
Midnight (1963), Music Before
Midnight (1964), Music to Midnight (1964) and Music Through Midnight (1967). He had
stints on Housewives' Choice in 1964,
1966 and 1967. There was The Top Ten Game
(1965-66), Swingalong (1966-67), Music Session One for the Home Service
(1967) and then Radio 4 (1969), Big Band
Sound (1967-68), Album Time
(1968-69), After Seven (1972-73) and Let's Go Latin (1973-75). All these were
in addition to European Pop Jury, Nordring Roundabout and Europe 74 to Europe 77.
Here's
a clip of David presenting a 1965 edition of the Top Ten Game:
For BBC Radio 2 David wrote and narrated the 4-part story on
Tommy Steele, Flash, Bang, Wallop!
and a 4-part portrait of Max Bygraves simply called Max. Both series sold around the world as a Transcription Services
release. He also worked behind the scenes as a producer; he's listed on Pete
Murray's Open House for instance.
David returned to Canada in 1977 where he was offered the
position of anchorman for the CBC television Evening News. He continued to broadcast on both TV and radio with
programmes such as Sunday Arts, Saturday Side Up and the popular and successful
Mountain Top Music. He retired in the
early 2000s but continued, up until a
couple of years ago, to record documentaries and provide voice-overs. (Postscript: David died in December 2023 aged 94)
Europe 74 to Europe
82
Europe 74 was introduced in July of that year essentially to
fill the weeks of the schedule when Pop
Over Europe or European Pop Jury
weren't on. It seems likely that the programme was David Gell's idea, he both
introduced and produced the early shows. By 1975 John Meloy and then Steve
Allen produced, with Mel House taking over later.
The Europe programmes
were usually based around a particular country or theme and included music from
performers from that country and interviews (in English), most of which would
be provided under reciprocal arrangements with other EBU broadcasters. Colin
Berry remembers that tapes would arrive from the selected country and that he'd
have to make up features to fit the content - not strictly his job as a staff
announcer!
Colin's first Europe 78 on 4 February 1978
David Gell continued to present until July 1977 when Andy
Cartledge and then Nick Page and Don Durbridge filled in. Colin Berry took over
as permanent host of Europe 78 in
February and remained with the programme until its demise in 1982. It's
interesting to note that both Colin's first show in 1978 and his last in
December 1982 focussed on Australia, surely foretelling their coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest from 1983 and
their eventual entry into the competition itself last year.
This clip, from a full programme that's in circulation,
comes from 2 July 1977 so I make this David Gell's penultimate Europe 77.
This clip of Europe 80
with Colin Berry dates from 8 March 1980.
And finally honorary mentions of some other European music
related shows on BBC radio:
International Spin
Between 1963 and 1967 Clive Roslin, later a BBC TV announcer
and on LBC and Radio 4, regularly presented shows featuring "the pick of
international pops" on the Light Programme. Initially this was on Twelve O'Clock Spin and then Pops Around the World and finally International Spin.
Music from the Continent
The shortage of needletime on BBC radio meant that producers
had to rely on BBC in-house sessions and foreign orchestras. Music from the Continent (1965) offered
recordings made available by other EBU broadcasters to fill a half-hour slot.
The (uncredited) producer of this Light Programme show was Johnny Beerling
whose abiding memory of it hearing lots of music by German zither player Rudi
Knabl. Similar orchestral shows ran on Network Three as From the Continent (1965) and a Home Service filler programme
called Continental Style (1965-66)
European Song Cup Contest
This is the now-forgotten song contest that was held in the
Belgian resort of Knokke every year between 1959 and 1973. Although the UK
entered all the contests - with singers ranging from Wally Whyton and Anita
Harris to Engelbert Humperdink and Dave Berry - it was never properly covered
by BBC radio apart from in 1971 when Brain Matthew introduced a week of
programmes called Knokke Nights.
The contest was revived in 1980 (running until 1986 I think)
as the Knokke Cup. Colin Berry introduced a handful of programmes in 1980 and
1984.
European Music Game
This was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 between 1976 and 1982.
Contestants would take part in UK only heats and progress to the full European
quiz. Initially these were drawn from BBC local radio stations and then from
those that progressed through David Hamilton's Music Game. Quizmasters were David Gell, Tim Rice and then David
Hamilton himself. The full Europe-wide quiz was usually chaired by RTE's Larry
Gogan. Countries taking part tended to be from the Nordring group.
Hilversum Greets Radio 2
The name Hilversum was already familiar to anyone with one
of those old radio dials. By the late 1960s it was home to the Dutch public
broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting. Between 1979 and
1983 Radio 2 and NOP co-produced a series of concerts featuring British singers
(Nick Curtis and Danny Street were regulars) accompanied by the Metropole
Orchestra conducted by Dolf van der Linden, a regular from the Nordring series. Hilversum
Greets Radio 2 was presented by Aad Bos (pictured left).
Euro-Mix
This was Radio 5's look at life and
music across Europe. Initially presented by Caron Keating and then Robert Elms
it ran from 1990 to 1994.
My thanks go to Johnny Beerling, Colin Berry, Rosemary
Gell and Adam Cartledge for their help in piecing together this history.
