I don't
think my Facebook feed has been quite so busy as it has been in the last couple
of months following the enforced departure of Brian Matthew from Sounds of the Sixties.
I'm a member
of the Sounds of the Sixties Facebook group and the fact that Brian was absent
and replaced by Tim Rice, then the news that he'd wouldn't be returning, had
the avids in uproar. To cap it all the show is to continue with Tony Blackburn
but at the ungodly hour of 6am on Saturday morning, two hours earlier.
As if to rub
salt in the wounds of Brian's devoted listeners, Radio 2 boss Lewis Carnie
wrote in the current edition of the Radio
Times the somewhat illogical statement that "Brian is irreplaceable at 8am on a Saturday, so
we're moving the Sounds of the 60s to
6am, with a live show hosted by Tony Blackburn". So he's both
irreplaceable and replaceable it seems.
Of course network controllers are
perfectly at liberty to have a schedule shake-up and, it must be admitted, that
until this year Radio 2's schedule has been pretty static of late. However,
last month's overnight changes caused a ruckus and now Brian has publically
declared that the decision to leave was by mutual agreement as "absolute
balderdash. I was ready and willing and able to go back". All very messy and sadly not untypical of the
gulf between management and on-air talent - witness the shoddy treatment of
Alex Lester who, after nearly 30 years with the station had no visit from an executive, nor even the offer of a farewell drink.
The furore surrounding SOTS was discussed on yesterday's
edition of Feedback.
Brian has been hosting Sounds
of the Sixties since March 1990. But he wasn't the first presenter; when it
started in 1983 Keith Fordyce was in the hot seat. When Keith left in 1986
there was a string of guest presenters - all musicians and singers who'd
enjoyed fame in the 60s - plus quite a few shows with Simon Dee.
When Brian took over there was a
promise of "new, improved nostalgia" (see article above). The formula
has been pretty much unchanged in the intervening 27 years. Brian's presence
has always lent an air of authority to the show - he was there at the time on Saturday Club, Easy Beat and Thank Your
Lucky Stars. When, today, Brian played a clip from the 60s BBC Transcription
Service series Pop Profile featuring
George Harrison it was Brian interviewing. But
let's not forget that Tony Blackburn has equally valid 1960s credentials - and still
sounds as fresh as he did back then - and there's continuity too with producer
Phil Swern compiling the show.
But today was the end of an era for
Brian, doubly so as it not only marks the end of a 27 year run on Sounds of the Sixties but, including Round Midnight, it's the first time Brian hasn't been on the radio
at least once a week in 39 years.
From my own archive here's an edition
of Sounds of the Sixties from 23
October 2004.
This morning's swansong was a trip down memory lane with
archive clips and mentions of past show features. This is the show in full.
"This is your old mate Brian
Matthew saying that's your lot for this week. See you again soon"
He was the square-jawed news reporter with a nose for
trouble investigating the criminal underworld where all the baddies sported a
foreign accent and their evils plan were always thwarted with fisticuffs.
Michael John O'Shea, known as Rick O'Shea (geddit?) was the Dick Barton of his
day, the day being the mid-1970s. And mention of Dick Barton is apposite as in
two episodes, much like one of those CSI
crossover episodes, the retired special agent makes a guest appearance.
Ricochet was a
drama series running on BBC Radio 2 in 1974 and 1975. Stripped across the week
the stories unfolded at breakneck speed in their 15-minute timeslots, scenes punctuated
by the dramatic theme or the sound of a ricocheting bullet.
So what was Ricochet
all about? Fortunately the Radio Times
of 29 June 1974 fills us in:
"Not since the days of the mighty Dick Barton has there
been a team like it: Rick O'Shea, the London Globe's ace newshound, backed by Dusty Miller. The glamorous Jan
Paxton and lens-woman Penny Trinket. A team with a nose for trouble, an instinct
for just which cupboard hides which skeleton. According to their creator, Tony
Scott Veitch (who should know) they are quite a bunch. 'Dusty Miller is a reporter
and a very good man with his fist. Penny, she's very trendy and comes from
Liverpool. And Jan Paxton is O'Shea's assistant, a kind of Miss Oddjob. She has
a very ambivalent relationship with her employer.' And Rick O'Shea himself?
'He'll do anything to get his story,' says Veitch. 'Expense is no object. He
can charter a jet or whistle up a helicopter any time, and lives in a penthouse
behind Harrods.' So - what will happen when Rick and Co tangle with the devious
Hugo de Witt? Can the Special Branch ever keep up with the O'Shea team. How
much longer will the editor of the Globe
put up with Rick's expenses?"
Playing O'Shea was pock faced Aussie actor Ray Barrett of The Troubleshooters fame and voice
artist on numerous Gerry Anderson productions. Indeed in a delightful piece of
synchronicity Barrett was the voice of DJ Rick O'Shea in an episode of Thunderbirds called Ricochet. Jan Paxton was played by Margaret Wolfit (daughter of renowned
actor-manager Sir Donald Wolfit) and Dusty Miller by Alexander John.
Radio 2 scheduled Ricochet
twice a day when it started on 1 July 1974; heard first as part of Late Night Extra with a repeat the
following day at 13.45. By December of that year it was cut down to a 10-minute
slot going out at 18.35, just before Sports
Desk, with a repeat the following afternoon. The final episode aired on 27
March 1975.
Unfortunately it seems that the BBC didn't keep the tapes of
Ricochet - its likely they were dumped in the 80s - so don't expect any repeats
on Radio 4 Extra. But at least two episodes have been saved by a private
collector, the two episodes that included the guest appearance of Noel Johnson
playing Dick Barton that were broadcast in Christmas week 1974. I was alerted
to this search for old episodes by Fred Vintner when he first contacted me back
in late 2014. Fred runs the Navy Lark Appreciation Society and the connection
here is that long-time producer of The
Navy Lark was Alastair Scott Johnston who also produced Ricochet. Some years ago Fred had been
giving a book of cuttings by Alastair's daughter, Fiona Scott Johnston, that
included some of the Radio Times
billings and artwork for the show, this set him off on a quest to find out as
much about the programme as he could and to unearth those elusive recordings.
Much of what we do have about Ricochet is the artwork and the theme tune. From the off the Radio Times would print a weekly strip cartoon
on the Friday radio billing pages. I have an incomplete collection of the
magazine for that period and a few of the strips are reproduced below. They are credited to Malcolm Harrison
(about whom I know nothing) and scriptwriter Tony Scott Veitch. Veitch by the
way was born in Scotland but lived for many years in Australia and wrote
adventures series for both the BBC radio - Overland
Patrol set in Oz (1965-7), Nicholas
Quinn-Anonymous (1966), Six Steps in
the Dark (1967), The Young Pioneers,
again set Down Under (1967-8) and Mr
Pybus (1970-71) - and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as well an
penning many novels, mostly Westerns, under the pseudonym Scott McLure.
The theme tune was released as Ricochet with added gunshot effects in a recording credited to the
BBC Midland Radio Orchestra conducted by Norrie Paramor. The single from BBC
Records (RESL20) was released on 7 June 1974 as well as cropping up later in
the year on an MRO album The most
beautiful girl in the world (REB180). The track, under its original title Fasten Seat Belts, then appears
years later on the CD compilation Girl in
a Suitcase (Winchester Hospital Radio 2001) but here credited to the
Gerhard Narholz Orchestra. Austrian composer Narholz, who also recorded under the
name of Norman Candler, wrote the tune. It's this version that then ends up
doing double theme tune duty when it gets used again on Radio 2 in 1980 as Pete Murray closes Open House and
moves to a new weekend slot.
Here's the MRO version of Ricochet in full and in use on the programme. And this is the Narholz version as used by Pete Murray together with a clip from his Saturday show.
Needless to say if you have a
tape of the show lurking in the loft please contact me.
Few radio shows feature both Al Bowlly and ZZ Top on their
playlist, but Desmond Carrington's The
Music Goes Round was such a show, a Radio 2 Friday night fixture for twelve
years. Prior to that Desmond had hosted the Sunday lunchtime All Time Greats from 1981 to 2004 with a
music selection, chosen by listeners, that could be equally diverse, even
though it did tend to veer towards easy listening and the nostalgic. That 36
year run of weekly music shows finally came to a dignified and poignant end in
October 2016 when ill-health forced Desmond to finally hung up his headphones.
Desmond Herbert Carrington was born and raised in Bromley
where he attended the County Grammar School. Perhaps sensing that his future
was in the arts his first job was as an office boy at Macmillan's the
publishers for 18/- a week. But his calling was acting and his first
professional role was as a Cockney schoolboy in Goodbye Mr Chips at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. He then secured
regular repertory work with the Penge Court Players.
In the early years of the Second World War Desmond joined
the army, serving in the Royal West Kent Regiment, initially posted to Northern
Ireland before serving out in India and Burma. Here he got his first
opportunity to broadcast by opening up Rangoon Radio after the Japanese army
had left. By 1946 he was serving as a commissioned officer out of Colombo in
Ceylon and managed to wangle a job at the new forces station Radio SEAC (South
Eastern Asia Command). Based in a palm grove some 15 miles outside Colombo
the coverage was immense, taking in
India, East Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Indo-Chine, Japan, the Pacific and
the west coast of the States. On the team with Carrington were David Jacobs -
they would remain firm friends thereafter - McDonald Hobley, Charles Chilton
and Alexander Moyes.
On demob Desmond knocked on the door of the BBC but they
sent him away telling him that he was not of "sufficient promise" for
them to offer him a job. However he would eventually secure a post as part of
the BBC Drama Repertory company where he worked across a range of schools
broadcasts and drama productions such as Children's
Hour, Paul Temple and Mrs Dales Diary.
In parallel to his acting career Desmond pursued his other
great passion of cinema by carving out something of a specialism as an adapter
of film screenplays for radio broadcast. He'd presented some film programmes on
Radio SEAC and back in Britain he'd come up with the idea of recording the
soundtrack from the film projector using a sound mirror and a tape recorder.
With the agreement of the film companies he then used the edited highlights
from the recording to form a radio programme. He took the idea to both Radio Luxembourg
where the scenes would be linked together by Wilfrid Thomas in a series titled Movie Magazine. Later Desmond himself
would present a number of shows for the station that included film soundtracks
as well as interviews and film scores in programmes such as Hollywood Calling and the sponsored Alka-Seltzer Movie Parade. He continued
to appear on Luxembourg into the mid-50s.
Meanwhile back at the BBC that same idea of film adaptations
were featured in a number of programmes including Picture Parade (1948) and Sunday
Cinema (1949-50). Desmond returned to cinema related work at the BBC when
he and Spencer Hale (both pictured below) compiled and presented the Stargazing segment -basically star interviews with accompanying
film clips - and then the quiz segment Sounds
Familiar of the long-running film magazine Merry- Go-Round (Light Programme 1956-60)
Desmond's big break finally came in 1958 when he got a
telephone call from a colleague who was now producing Emergency Ward Ten asking if he'd like to play the part of the son
of a patient. Desmond leapt at the chance to do some live television over three
months. His performance was deemed a success and he was invited back to play
the part of a doctor - the part of Dr Chris Anderson. He remained in the show
until 1964 appearing in over 200 episodes.
Of his time on Emergency
Ward 10 Desmond would later recall the problems of having to memorise
"some appallingly difficult and long medical terms, Then I had the bright idea of writing them on the
inside of the sink as we were always scrubbing up for the operations on the
shows. During rehearsal, it worked fine, as there was no running water in the
sinks. When it came to the live transmission I watched in horror as my medical
terms were washed away as I started to scrub up. There was nothing for it but
to improvise".
Ironically it was Desmond's TV fame that led to his future
career as a disc jockey. In 1962 he was invited to compere Housewives' Choice for a fortnight whilst he was still appearing as
Dr Anderson and, as the Radio Times
billing adds, also appearing on stage in Doctor
in the House at Streatham Hill Theatre. He got repeat bookings on Housewives' Choice for the remainder of
its run between 1963 and 1967. In 1963 he was playing music from stage and
screen on the Light Programme's Twelve
O'Clock Spin. For the second half of 1964 it was more songs from the
musicals in Record Showtime with the Radio Times billing helpfully informing
us that he was appearing in Wanted on
Voyage at the Grand Theatre, Leeds - by now he'd just left Emergency Ward 10. The following year it
was a back to the world of film in Music
from the Movies, a series scripted by Movie-Go-Round's
Peter Haigh and produced by announcer Robin Boyle (a second series, produced by
Tony Luke followed in 1966). And, in case you were wondering, Des was now in Face to Face at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury.
Throughout 1966 Desmond could be heard every weekend hosting
Open House with "records of
assorted speeds, sizes, and styles to suit people with assorted tastes".
In 1967 he was back with more Music from
the Movies, this time working with the future radio comedy producer Richard
Willcox. There seemed to be no room for Desmond on Radio 2 when it replaced the
Light in September 1967 but in 1968 he was back adapting film soundtracks with
Spencer Hale for Radio 4's Disney Time
that included Mary Poppins, Dumbo and Bambi. Finally, from December 1968, and running until September
1972, Desmond had a daily show on Radio 2 playing the latest releases in Album Time. Aside from three appearances
in charge of After Seven in 1973
there was radio silence for the next eight years.
Desmond was invited back into the Radio 2 fold in early 1981
to introduce a series of shows featuring The
Magic of Stanley Black (other programmes would also feature Mantovani,
Ronnie Aldrich and Robert Farnon, John Gregory, Geoff Love and John Fox). He
owed his return to producer Paul Walters who, Paul reminded him on their first
meeting, had swung the boom on some of those old Emergency Ward 10 broadcasts at the ATV's Highbury studios.
The success of the Magic
of... shows led to an invitation to present the Sunday morning All Time Greats. Desmond expected it to
run for a month or so but after the first recording producer Jack Dabbs told
him, "well that's your pension, Desmond". He was right, it ran for 23
years!
In October 2011 Desmond gave listeners to The Music Goes Round and Round an
opportunity to hear again the first edition of All Time Greats. Although the BBC hadn't kept a copy, Desmond had.
Initially just an hour in duration, All Time Greats was extended to 90 minutes and then two, and for a
while three, hours and settled into what was more or less the old Family Favourites slot. It was a record
request show too so anything went, but as Desmond told the Radio Times in October 1985, the music choice was often vintage:
"It's the listeners' programme, not mine. They choose
the records". He gets about 500 suggestions a week requesting favourites
pieces and reckons some 6,000 records have been chosen by Radio 2 listeners
over the past four years. "Some people misquote the title as Old-Time Greats but it's certainly not
that. We can play records right up to the present day, though I admit that most
requests are for music from the 50s backwards. Most requested record? Without a
doubt Glen Miller's Moonlight Serenade.
Bunny Berigan's I can't get started
is a close second.
Still acting in the late 80s as evidenced by
this Radio Times article 17 January 1987
In August 2004 network controller Lesley Douglas decided to
have a re-shuffle and the Sunday lunchtime All
Time Greats came to an end. In this broadcast from 8 August 2004 Des tells
his listeners that the decision was not his, "and I should like to make
that clear".
In 1995 Dave Alyott and Desmond formed Foldback Media to
produce the shows for the BBC
The follow-up series, The
Music Goes Round, now on a Tuesday evening, was the same eclectic mix
condensed into an hour with each show adopting a theme for all or part of that
hour. Come April 2010 Desmond moved to Friday nights where he remained until
last year. For many years he'd been broadcasting from his home studio but by
now the show's opening was always the memorable "Evening all from home in
Perthshire, Scotland". Home being near Dunning where he lived with
producer and long-time partner Dave Aylott and, often curled up at Des's feet
during the show, cat Golden Paws Sam.
In 2013 Desmond spoke to Tim Blackmore about his radio
career in a Radio Talk podcast for
the Radio Academy.
In May 2016 Desmond celebrated his 90th birthday with this
special edition of The Music Goes Round.
Golden Paws Sam taking it easy
What listeners didn't know. and for a while neither did
Radio 2 management, was that Desmond's health was failing as he was battling
with cancer and Alzheimer's disease. In December 2015 he'd suffered a second
heart failure but was back at the microphone a few days later. However in
October 2016 he announced that after 70 years on the air he was reluctantly
having to "hang up my headphones" and say "enough is
enough". Here is that final show from 28 October.
Yesterday, on the day Radio 2 had already scheduled a tribute to Desmond, it was announced that he'd died. The voice of a true radio
all time great silenced.
