Two's Company - 50 Years of Radio 2

My first memories of listening to Radio 2 are those Sunday lunchtimes when Family Favourites, Michael Aspel hosting I seem to recall, was on the family Grundig wireless set. Yes, families really did have the radio on during the day and all sat down at the table for a meal, hard to believe I know. It was that and the comedy shows that followed with The Clitheroe Kid being a particular favourite- goodness knows why when I listen back to it now.

By the time I'd become interested in radio in the mid-70s I was fascinated by the way the station started each day: the test tones, then silence, the announcer - Colin Berry on weekdays and Tom Edwards on Saturday - playing the In Tune with You jingle ("the music's all here and waiting to spin, as we start to get ready to brighten your day") and welcoming listeners on 1500 metres long wave, 247 metres medium wave and stereo VHF.

I consumed as much of the station as I could even tuning in to those shows featuring the radio orchestras, I still have a couple of tapes with music arranged and conducted by Alyn Ainsworth for the Radio Orchestra. For years I was obsessed with tracking down a recording of Count Basie's Nice 'n' Easy, the theme for The Late Show, it was only when Amazon came along that I was able obtain the CD and hear the full track.

Little did I think that decades later some of those recordings I made of the station's output could be shared with the world via this blog. I know I can't possibly hope to communicate fifty years of Radio 2 in fifty minutes (actually fifty-two) but this is my audio tribute to mark the station's golden anniversary. It doesn't aim to be a comprehensive, the clips you hear, and most apart from some very early ones are mine, are what I could lay my hands on during three editing sessions earlier this summer. Enjoy this audio soundscape from Paul Hollingdale to Simon Mayo.

You'll hear: Paul Hollingdale, Robin Boyle, Jimmy Young, Michael Parkinson, Billy Cotton, Michael Aspel, Round the Horne, The Navy Lark, Pete Murray, The Dales, Waggoners Walk, Terry Wogan, Brian Matthew, Friday Night is Music Night, Colin Berry, Tom Edwards, Charlie Chester, David Gell, Len Jackson, Alan Dell, Benny Green, David Bellan, Tim Gudgin, John Dunn, Round Midnight, Ray Moore, Desmond Carrington, Gloria Hunniford, Sheila Tracy, Sport on 2 with Peter Brackley, Peter Jones, James Alexander Gordon, Jean Challis, David Hamilton, Wally Whyton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Pop Score (announcer Nick Jackson), The Monday Movie Quiz, The Law Game (announcer Peter Dickson), Hello Cheeky, The Grumbleweeds, The Random Jottings of Hinge and Bracket, The News Huddlines (announcer Richard Clegg), Sing Something Simple (announcer John Marsh), Richard Baker, Alan Keith, Hubert Gregg, Steve Race, Don Maclean, Nigel Ogden, Alan Freeman, Johnnie Walker, Fran Godfrey, Sarah Kennedy, Jeremy Vine, Paul Gambaccini, Russell Davies, Clare Teal, David Jacobs, Steve Wright, Tim Smith, Sounds of the 60s, Alex Lester, Paul Jones, Mike Harding, Bob Harris, Ed Stewart, Jonathan Ross, Andy Davies, Ken Bruce, Stuart Maconie, Mark Radcliffe, Tony Blackburn, Chris Evans, Alan Dedicoat and Simon Mayo.  

Time to Go, Home

Exactly fifty years ago today BBC announcer David Dunhill bade farewell to the Home Service "for today, and for all days". But he was prescient when he went on to say that the station was "like a bride on the eve of her wedding, we go on being the same person but we'll never again have the same name" for little changed when the Home Service became Radio 4. The same presenters presenting the same programmes at the same time. In this post I recall that final day of the Home Service on 29 September 1967.

Looking at the back issue of the Radio Times there are a smattering of programmes that the Radio 4 listener of today would recognise: Today, the Daily Service, Pick of the Week, The Archers, The World at One, Any Answers? and A Book at Bedtime. But what stands out are the whole chunks of the day given over to schools broadcasts, heard on both VHF and MW, a classical concert in the evening and all the regional variations.

In 1967 Today was still offered up in two editions at 7.15 and 8.15, with the second outing usually a reworking of the first. More often than not the regular presenter was Jack de Manio but this week it was Corbet Woodall, the former BBC television newsreader. A very small part of that Today programme was retained in the BBC archives as Corbet introduces some of the Radio 1 jingles made by Kenny Everett.

On newsreading duty that morning was veteran announcer Alvar Lidell and providing the continuity was Brian Perkins - he'd return to New Zealand a couple of years later but was back at the BBC in 1978.

Three names in the For Schools listings are worth picking out. Anyone listening to BBC languages programmes would have heard of Raymond Escoffey. Over the course of twenty years he wrote and/or produced dozens of  programmes for kids learning French as well as a Russian for Beginners course aimed at adults. In 1985 he co-authored the Penguin French Dictionary.

Those of us, myself included, that heard Music and Movement over the school wireless set in the late 1960s will probably have been listening to James Dodding. A drama teacher - who's claim to fame was that he taught David Bowie at the City Literary Institute in the mid-60s - he appeared on BBC radio between 1967 and 1973. He went on to be a drama director and specialised in writing about and teaching mime - he'd studied with Marcel Morceau and Ladislav Fialka.

Michael Smee introduces Learning About Life at 11 am. Michael was one of those general purpose broadcasters that popped up on a number of programmes across all the BBC's television and radio channels, including the World Service.  From 1963 to 1965 he was a co-presenter, alongside Nan Winton, of In Town Today, a Saturday lunchtime version of In Town Tonight. Over the course of about 30 years he narrated and introduced a whole host of schools programmes and further education programmes - including the magazine programme Fresh Start - on the Home Service, Radio 4 and BBC1. There were general reporting duties on Woman's Hour and Movie-Go-Round plus chairing We Beg to Differ - "an open discussion of subjects on which men and women tend to disagree"  and Be Reasonable!, the male reply to Petticoat Line. The only clip I have of Michael Smee dates from the 1978 repeat of Sound by Design that explores "some major developments in the technique of radio".   

Sifting through the Pick of the Week just after noon (and just ten minutes of announcements, what where they I wonder? SOS messages, programme news) was Gale Pedrick and John Ellison. The first bit of picking had been in 1959 so the programme is now a couple of years off its 60th anniversary. I don't remember Pick of the Week from this time, I'm more your Margaret Howard era, so I've always understood the Radio Times billing to mean that script writer Gale Pedrick chose the items but you only heard John Ellison on-air actually introducing them.  

The World at One was still pretty much in its infancy at this point, having started in October 1965, under the control of that old Fleet Street hack William Hardcastle (above). The daytime newsreader was Alexander Moyes whilst Michael de Morgan looked after the continuity.

Note that writing credit for The Archers. Bruno Milna was the nom de plume for Norman Painting aka Phil Archer.

The afternoon fare includes two repeats from the Light Programme with both Your Verdict? and Any Answers? The first of these, devised by John P. Wynn the brains behind Brain of Britain, sounds like a prototype for the later Radio 2 panel game The Law Game.    

At 4.45 pm it was time to cue in The Clog Dance from La fille mal gardée the theme for Home this Afternoon, a daily fixture on the Home Service and then Radio 4 from 1964 to 1970. Billed as "designed to attract the older listeners" it was a rather twee mix of talks and reports, the serious and the humorous. Ken Sykora was the most regular presenter but Jean Metcalfe, Polly Elwes and Steve Race also featured over the six year run. In the same way that Woman's Hour would come from the regions one day a week, so did Home this Afternoon. On this day it was the turn of Wales with former hill farmer turned broadcaster Harry Soan.     

The six o'clock news was read by Bruce Wyndham with Ronald Fletcher the continuity announcer. Bruce must have been on an overnight shift as he popped into the Light Programme studio to chat to David Hamilton during Music Through Midnight, probably after a quick pint or two at the Yorkshire Grey, and the following morning was reading the news on the newly launched Radio 4. Ronald Fletcher would also appear again that evening as he was the regular announcer on Listen to this Space (see below)  

Each of the regions had their own news programme after Radio Newsreel (the duration varied by region) but as my edition is for London and the south east it just lists Tim Gudgin with South East. These regional round-ups eventually shrunk down to a 5 minute bulletin before finally being dropped in 1980.

If the daytime output all sounds a little too earnest then the 7 to 8 pm slot offered some light relief. The light-hearted quiz Who? What? Where? When? was chaired by Ken Sykora and included Benny Green on the panel. It only lasted for one series but had a great guest list that would include Flanders and Swann, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett. Rather more successful was the topical comedy Listen to this Space. The brain-child of its star Nicholas Parsons it ran for four series and paved the way for Week Ending and The News Huddlines. I wrote about Listen to this Space in 2015 and put together these clips

And the final programme on the Home Service?  Well that was Jazz at Night. Yes, the presenter is the John Dunn, demonstrating just how versatile and busy the announcers were.  The next day John was on newsreading duty, famously starting the 12.30 news during Rosko's show with "Here is the news... in English."

Following Jazz at Night it fell to David Dunhill to read the forecast for coastal waters (the shipping forecast was over on the Light Programme) and say goodnight to listeners to the Home Service. This is how he signed off.  

Radio 1 at 50 - Part 4 It's 1FM

September 1992 and marking a quarter of a century on air Radio 1 faces the end of an era - though little did we know it at the time. A year later DLT had gone. So had Bates, Bob Harris and Fluff. Beerling was out. Bannister was in. Still, the station was in celebratory mood and it would be the last time it would widely acknowledge its heritage until its 40th some 15 years later. 

So how did Radio 1 sound on its 25th birthday on 30 September 1992? Fortunately I recorded some chunks of that day's broadcasts. 

The main event was The Birthday Train, yet another excuse to get Simon Bates out of the studio. In this case it was on a train making its way from Edinburgh to London where it was to be officially named by Catherine Zeta Jones no less as 'BBC Radio 1FM'. 

Musically it's not a typical day - Cliff Richard and Sandie Shaw are amongst the artists on Bruno Brookes' playlist. From this week Radio 1 was renamed 1FM - a short-lived affectation - and there was the new Closer to the Music jingle package.

In this first sequence its Bruno and then Simon Mayo with the Breakfast Crew (Diane Oxberry and Rod McKenzie) with occasional link-ups with Bates. The its over to Simes on the train for part of The Golden Hour. (Does anyone have a copy of Vince Clarke's version of Theme One?) The 1FM Express was 45 minutes late into King's Cross - apparently a careless JCB driver cut through a signalling cable - so Jakki Brambles is late on air broadcasting from the Roof Gardens in Kensington. With Jakki is station controller Johnny Beerling, Tony Hadley, Midge Ure, Smiley Miley, Neil Arthur (ex-Blancmange) and Boy George. (All credit to Peter Powell as Tony, Neil and Boy George all mention him playing their records and encouraging them).       

This second sequence comprises the best bits of "the winning team" billed as Steve Wright So Far with some old sketches including Mr Angry from Purley, Laura's Second Love, John Bowles, Gervaise, Llama Man and Linda Lust plus archive clips of guests John Mayor, John Smith, Mel Gibson, Clive Anderson, Sylvester Stallone, Smashie and Nicey, Dame Edna Everage, Spike Milligan, Richard and Judy, Bruce Forsyth, Steven Wright, Phil Cornwell and Danny Baker.

In the third and final sequence from 30 September 1992 its Mark Goodier, first with Mega Hits, "the Top 10 you choose every day" and then after News 92 in comes the Evening Session. The Session includes current chart acts covering some of the biggest number ones of the last 25 years: The Wonder Stuff's version of Slade's Coz I Love You, Kingmaker's Lady Madonna, Blur's Maggie May, Boy George's My Sweet Lord, The Frank and Walters cover of I'm a Believer and, bizarely, Ned's Atomic Dustbin with Charlene's I've Never Been to Me. There's also The Mission with their version of Atomic, Billy Bragg with When Will I See You Again?, Carter USM's cover of Another Brick in the Wall, The Farm with Don't You Want Me? and Manic Street Preachers with Suicide is Painless. All these tracks were later released on the NME album Ruby Trax.   

For whatever reason I didn't record the Man Ezeke so we move onto "the man with musical plan" Nicholas Andrew Argyle Campbell. Nicky plays a selection of number hit singles and album tracks from 1967 onwards - my recording ends in 1977 with Way Down. Finally, to round off the day part of Bob Harris's classy overnight show.   

Radio 1 at 50 - Part 3 On Show

A Teddy Bear's Picnic, Action Special trains, Peel in Russia, Bates in the desert, record-breaking discs transported by Eddie Kidd and Bit in the Middle T-Shirts. Yes it was all jinks on 80s Radio 1 and by now all in super stereo too.

These are the pages of Radio 1's 1988 publicity magazine On Show. Within its pages spot a fresh-faced Simon Mayo, a scary-looking Mike Read in drag, a Gary Glitter annual, Bruno looking like he's modelling for the Littlewoods catalogue, a 1FM badge-wearing giant bunny and giant chicken and a Corgi roadshow truck - did you buy one? And before you ask, no I've no idea what happened to Ro Newton either.

In the next and final Radio 1 at 50 blog post - the sound of the station on its 25th birthday. 

Radio 1 at 50 - Part 2 The First Ten Years

If Radio 1 had a golden era it must surely be the first ten years of its existence. For the first five there was little or no commercial opposition and when ILR stations did roll out there were still vast tracts of the UK that had no choice but to tune in to 247 for their (daytime) pop music fix. All the DJs were household names and many popped up on TV too, were mobbed when they opened a local supermarket or filled the dance floor hosting down at the discotheque. 

By 1970 Tony Blackburn's morning show pulled in 4.45 million listeners, the JY Prog on both Radios 1 and 2 5.75m, Radio 1 Club 2.3m, Saturday's Junior Choice 7.9m, Rosko 2.78m, DLT's Sunday show 3.25m and Pick of the Pops 4.65m.

On 30 September 1977 Radio 1 celebrated its 10th anniversary and gained  a Radio Times cover. Inside Ray Connolly spoke to  a number of the DJs. Here are some extracts from those articles.  

Tony Blackburn

His views on popular music and the function of Radio 1 are disarmingly honest. He says: 'To me pop music is just a load of tuneful, memorable music. Every week about 70 new records are released, of which maybe one or two will be hits. You play the hits like mad for six or seven weeks until something else comes along to take their place, and then two or three years later you bring them out again as revived-45s.

I think people take popular music too seriously. At the moment everyone's talking about punk rock. That will probably last for another two weeks and then be replaced by something else. But all the time there are a number of good artists, not affected by the trends, who keep on turning out good records year after year.

I think my job is to be artistic in sound. I think I'm painting a portrait in sound. I'm also trying to entertain the audience. My show is what I call U-rated entertainment ... something which goes into the home and will not offend anyone at all.

If I were in charge of a popular music station I would rotate the same 30 records all day - the way they do at WABC in New York.

Anne Nightingale

Anne Nightingale, as the only woman disc-jockey on national radio, would appear to attract a slightly different kind of audience from her male colleagues. Her programme is all requests and, although she steers well clear of the obvious trap of running a musical problem corner, she does find that many of her requests concern's people's personal lives.

'It's really very difficult not to become involved and distressed sometimes by the letters we get,' she says.  For instance, I got a letter from a girl a couple of years ago who was dying of cancer. She wanted a certain record playing on a certain day because she thought it might be the last day she and her husband would have together. So I played the record, although I didn't explain over the air all the details of the request. Then I subsequently found out from the husband's sister that she has, in fact, died the day after my playing that record for her had made her last day very happy.

Many of Anne's listeners are students ('Leeds University is incredible'), but she feels she has to be careful not to give the programme an elitist style in case the young person from the comprehensive will be deterred from writing to her because of his lack of educational qualifications. (The fact that university students even write in to request programmes must surely illustrate just how far pop music and attitudes have changed in the past 15 years.)

Possibly because she has had a great deal of experience in journalism Anne proved to be the most critical of the disc-jockeys I spoke to of the way in which Radio 1 is organised: 'I feel that because the BBC is in this special position of not having to bother about ratings or attracting revenue from advertising it ought to be able to offer the best popular music radio station in the world. But because of things like finance and needle-time it has to compromise, with the result that it really is two separate stations - a Top 40 station during the day and an FM, more serious rock station late at night and over the weekends. What we need are two distinct stations, one for the teeny-boppers and another for people who want to listen to album tracks.  

Dave Lee Travis

No one can say that it isn't a responsible job, because it is. You can't go on a national radio station and just go off at any old tangent. Occasionally we get people in to talk about careers for young people, and I'm sure that because it's presented on Radio 1 instead of an another station, then we get the kids to take it more seriously.

But basically my function is to enlighten the listeners by guiding them towards new music which they might not have heard otherwise and, like any other disc-jockey or pop star, I'm there to amuse the listeners and be a friend in the home. You can't really do more because it isn't a political thing and it isn't your place to start discussing politics.

He feels that popular music has changed for the better during the last ten years and is sure that Radio 1 must take some of the credit for that.

'Punk rock is exciting and good for the entire business. Eighty per cent of it may be rubbish, but the other 20 per cent might be good. And I'm sure that out of punk rock will come some good, new and exciting bands.

Although he admits to having a very catholic taste in music, his very favourite piece of music is Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. 

Alan Freeman

Because of his great age (half a century is a great age for someone in the ephemeral world of pop radio!) he has possibly the most objective view of both the public who listen to him and the station itself. He says of his listeners: 'In the past ten years the people who listen to music have grown up very quickly They really listen now. Music isn't just a background thing for them. They listen to it, they eat it, they sleep it and they even dream it. Possibly the music has become too intelligent and it might possibly have lost some of its fun, but there is so much good music around today it's absolutely fascinating.'

His audience is so widespread that he is secretly amazed. Some time ago he went to buy a raincoat and was surprised to hear the shop assistant (a man in his late 50s or early 60s) complimenting him upon his programme. Assuming that he was mistaken for someone else, he smiled and said 'thank you' only to find himself on the end of a very long dissertation on the art of Emmerson, Lake and Palmer. The elderly raincoat salesman was something of an expert on modern. serious rock music.  

Freeman sees Radio 1 as a great success story, but recognises that it will forever be the butt of the critics. 'You see, it was the successor to the pirates and so from its inception it was unglamorous because it wasn't illegal. And some of the disc-jockeys who had been pirates lost a bit of their glamour because they suddenly became legal and respectable.'

Kid Jensen

'

Radio 1's function is to reflect the trends and tastes in popular music, and to present new sounds. And I think it has done this very successfully over the last few years. A lot of people choose to ignore a lot of the work that Radio 1 has done in giving air-time to new directions in music.'

He is unhappy with the name 'disc-jockey', because he prefers to see himself as 'a broadcaster - a communicator. and perhaps a friend. I like to have a lot of fun on the radio,' he says. 'And often when I go on live gigs I feel rather like a politician, because, like a politician, a disc-jockey obviously has to be liked by people.'

Elsewhere in the same issue of the Radio Times, Wilfred D'Ath caught up with the Radio 1 Roadshow team in Plymouth.

On the Road

Brian Patten, the Roadshow's producer, joins me for drinks in the hotel lounge. he and the Roadshow team - a disc-jockey, a secretary, three sound engineers and a driver - are suffering a little from road-lag, having traversed Sandown, IOW, Bournemouth, Swanage, Weymouth, Exmouth and Torquay in the past seven days, and with St Austell, Falmouth, St Ives, Newquay, Bude, Ilfracombe, Minehead and Weston-super-Mare still ahead. And this is only the south-west leg of the operation.

We are joined by the week's DJ, Paul Burnett, a charming uxorious man (his wife Nicole and two children are travelling with him) in his middle 30s, surprisingly lacking in confidence for a big-time Radio 1 DJ. Unlike some of the other Roadshow jockeys - Dave Lee Travis, Ed Stewart, Kid Jensen, Noel Edmonds ad Tony Blackburn - who pull enormous audiences on the strength of their TV reputations, Burnett, a shy Geordie whose life's ambition it was to spin discs on Radio 1, is having to work against the grain a bit. One likes him all the more for it.

Next morning I wake at 6.30, breakfast early and make my way to the Roadshow site on the Hoe, right under the lighthouse. But the team has beaten me to it. The Radio 1 caravan is already being unpacked.

The Radio 1 Roadshow caravan is a tiny miracle of audio compactness. In a matter of minutes it unfolds itself into studio console, sound stage, control panel, two deafening loudspeakers, storage space for records and props, and, of course, a direct Post Office line to the Radio 1 continuity suite in London. There is even a huge blue bin for the audience's record dedications, which tend to be written on bananas, vodka bottle and teddy bears.  

By 8.30 this miracle has unfolded its brightly painted contents for all to see and a small crowd of (mostly local) teenagers is beginning to gather behind the steel barriers. There is one middle-aged man in a dark suit carrying an enormous transistor radio. A plump girl of 16, wearing a Radio 1 sweatshirt, has followed the show (with her mother!) all the way along the coast from Bournemouth and intends to stay with it till St Ives, at least. It is extremely hard to get her to explain why. She just like the feeling of being at the centre of the channel's ten million or so listeners for the day.

Shortly after ten, Burnett arrives to do his warm-up. he looks distinctly nervous. 'This is the worst part,' he tells me. 'If you don't get them during the warm-up, you don't get them at all.' Patten introduces him on stage and he launches into a routine of discs, corny gags and friendly insults directed at other Radio1 DJs.

The Radio 1 Roadshow slips effortlessly on to the air-waves at 11 am, returning to London at 11.30 am for the national news. Burnett announces this as 1.30 am and spends a little time kicking himself. But it's his worst fluff of the morning. Pop records, pre-selected in London from a short-list of 60, blare out into the sunshine. The audience cheers loudly whenever Plymouth is mentioned. The show comes alive, it seems to me, at 11.15, with a record called Hello Mary Lou by Oakie. there is an eruption of tiny pubescent hands clapping in time to it all over Plymouth Hoe. Everyone looks happy. One feels happy oneself. It is difficult to imagine Radio 1 promoting itself more colourfully.

At the back of the magazine Paul Gambaccini wrote about the changes in pop music over the first ten years.

Some pundits wondered if the neglect by Radio 1's daytime programmes could keep punk rock records out of the Top 20, but this kind of speculation is always ill-informed. The notorious playlist of about 40 records which, thanks to the music press, has become the most famous list since the Papal Index, only influences the programmes heard between 7.0 am and 4.30 pm Monday to Friday. Every other Radio 1 show has its own programming philosophy, and very major New Wave record has been aired, although God Save the Queen was quickly banned. Even this case proved the rule, because just as Je T'aime- Moi Non Plus survived a BBC ban and the renunciation of its own record company to become number one in 1969. The Sex Pistols got to number two in some charts despite the BBC and the big retailers who refused to stock the single.

On the other hand, it is by no means certain the Radio 1 airplay guarantees a Top 20 placing. Although he may run me down one night with a very fast-moving sports car for saying this, well over 50 per cent of the singles Noel Edmonds chooses as his Record of the Week never make the 20. If being played every morning for a week to an audience of several millions can't break a record, nothing can, and, in the case of most stiffs, nothing does. The Radio 1 playlist and the Top 20 are two different compilations. One is assembled by daytime producers who feel they know what their audience wants to hear, the other is tabulated by a bureau that adds up what record buyers have purchased.   

And finally John  Peel wrote about some of the trends in music and, not unexpectedly championed punk.

It is true that no station other than Radio 1 would sanction a programme such as that I introduce each night of the week. On this John Walters, my producer, and I present what we feel to be the very best of rock music, taking in also folk, reggae and whatever else seems relevant. We also play the Yesses and ELPs of this world, although with a disgraceful display of truculence from me, as part of our review function. The commercial stations dependent on wooing the largest (and most prosperous) of audiences have generally restricted their hesitant wanderings outside the Top 40 to picnicking in Framptonland.

John Walters and I, together with the producers responsible for Saturday's Alan Freeman and Kid Jensen programmes, have welcomed punk not only for its vigour and relevance, but because it has emerged as music of character in an increasingly characterless landscape. It does seem however that Radio 1, by generally ignoring even those punk records which have made the BBC charts, has missed a heaven-sent opportunity to re-establish credibility with a considerable potential audience which is growing up to believe that radio has little or no part in its life.

Although the current and undeniable force of punk may soon be blunted by exploitation and misunderstanding, media hostility and misrepresentation, the youthful punk audience believes, as we believed in 1967, that no real divide exists - nor will ever exist - between the musicians and their audience. Given the history of underground music over the past decade they should perhaps be a trifle less optimistic, as success must corrupt their heroes as surely as it corrupted the heroes of the past. In the meantime, it is enough to enjoy the music, reflecting that being condemned in the Sun and The Times alike will serve to strengthen rather than weaken their cause. 

To mark the station's decade on air Alan Freeman presented the documentary Radio 1 - The First Ten Years. Written by David Rider - he also wrote an accompanying book - it was broadcast on Sunday 2 October 1977. [This recording is the version repeated by Radio 4 Extra on 30 September 2017 -its taken from the 31 December 1977 repeat tape - but as certain sections were edited out for that repeat I have added these back in from an off-air medium wave recording, hence the edits are apparent] 

In the next Radio 1 at 50 blog post the fun-filled 1980s.