The White Rose Wedding

In its 100 year history the BBC has provided live radio coverage of twelve British royal family weddings. All but one of those has been held in either London (Westminster Abbey or St Pauls Cathedral) or Windsor (Castle or Guildhall). That exception was the marriage of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Katherine Worsley, held in the summer of 1961 at York’s magnificent Minster.

There have been two royal weddings at York Minster, but you have to go back to ye olde medievale Englande and January 1328 for the first one when the new king Edward III married his young French bride Philippa of Hainault. There was more of a local connection for the 1961 ceremony as Katherine Worsley was born just 20 miles north in the picturesque North Yorkshire village of Hovingham.

The first radio royal wedding was in November 1934 this time for the previous Duke of Kent, Prince George, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. That ceremony was described by Howard Marshall, one of the BBC’s main commentators on state occasions and sports events, principally cricket, who would go on to be one of the Corporation’s war correspondents.  And that’s where there is an overlap with the broadcaster in this recording as Audrey Russell also served in that wartime team of correspondents. 

So it’s back to the afternoon of Thursday 8 June 1961 on the BBC Light Programme.  A home recording of the radio commentary of the wedding of Prince Edward and Katherine Worsley made by Eric Bartington surfaced last year and was donated to me by Gerad de Roo . Unfortunately it was too late for the 60^th anniversary, but here’s an opportunity to hear it again as broadcast. Audrey Russell is on solo duty for this commentary. However, the old prejudices still persisted as a clergyman greeted her condescendingly with “Ah, Miss Russell, I suppose you’ve come to describe the hats.”  

Audrey Russell – Queen of the Commentators

Audrey Russell was born in Dublin in 1906 but would attend a boarding school near Harrow on the Hill. After going to a French finishing school she re-joined her parents, now living in Mortimer Street in central London, by coincidence just a 5 minute walk from where the new Broadcasting House would be built. With ambitions to join the theatre she took a number of small roles but increasingly found her organisational skills better suited to stage management and eventually worked for the theatre club Group Theatre founded by dancer Rupert Doone.

In the months leading up to the Second World War Audrey joined the Auxiliary Fire Service, a decision that was to change her life.  Following the declaration of war she was stationed at Chiltern Street. Its proximity to Broadcasting House meant that reporters often called in at the station to ask about the fire service’s response to the Blitz. The Station Superintendent was not averse to a little publicity and would welcome BBC staff with half pints of bitter from the nearby Wallace Head pub. On one occasion Audrey was on the beer run when news reporter Robin Duff and actor Terence de Marnay (at the time working on Radio Newsreel) were guests at the station. At Terence’s suggestion she was interviewed on her impressions as a woman in the fire service.  She then in effect became the BBC’s “tame firewoman...often called upon for a story”. One of her recordings heard by Air Commodore Harold Peake so impressed him that he requested she be seconded to the Air Ministry. The upshot was a series of six five-minute talks for the BBC on the work of the WAAF. Though Audrey returned to the fire service after the series it was only a matter of weeks before she was offered a job as a news reporter in the Overseas Service but without the ordeal of facing an Appointments Board.

Working for the Overseas Service from June 1942 she was based at 200 Oxford Street and assigned to Radio Newsreel under its first editor Peter Pooley. In readiness for D-Day  the War Reporting Unit was established  and she would eventually join the team as the first woman to be accredited as a war correspondent. In late 1944 and early 1945 Audrey would send dispatches from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway.

After the war she accepted a post as a news reporter in the newly formed Home News Reporting Unit, again the only woman on the team (she was replaced by Sally Holloway in 1951). Somewhat frustrated by now just getting domestic stories to cover she made a number of unsuccessful  attempts to join the Outside Broadcast department as a commentator. Even Richard Dimbleby saw little chance of this happening – though he was later a great supporter – saying that “there will never be a successful women commentator. Why? Because they haven’t got the stamina”.   

Her break into commentating came about because of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip in November 1947. The OB team thought it might be a good idea to have a woman commentator on the route, if only to describe the wedding dress, so she was loaned out by the News Division for the event.

For the next four years Audrey split her time between news reporting and occasional commentating gigs both at home and abroad. Eventually, encouraged by her fellow commentators, in particular Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, she left the BBC in April 1951 so go freelance and secured a contract with OB at almost double her old salary. Within a year she was covering King George VI’s funeral and a year later was on the team for the Coronation. From then on Audrey – whom colleagues affectionately nicknamed  ‘Tawdry Bustle’ – was one of the first people that BBC radio would call on to cover royal and state events such as royal tours aboard (the first being the long Commonwealth Tour in 1953/54), visits by foreign royalty and leaders and royal weddings. She was also a regular contributor to Woman’s Hour appeared on In Town Tonight and the panel games Twenty Questions  and Two in One.

Her last royal engagement was the coverage of Charles and Diana in 1981. In her 1984 autobiography A Certain Voice she wrote: “I hope I never know I have done my last broadcast. Inevitably remembrance will be poignant when such things are out of reach”. She died five years later in August 1989.

For more on Audrey Russell see the BBC 100 website.

For those readers familiar with Marylebone, the fire station on Chiltern Street is now the 3-star hotel Chiltern Firehouse whilst the Wallace Head is now The Flowerhouse Pub.   

British Royal Wedding Radio Coverage

Some of the post-war ceremonies were also covered live on the BBC General Overseas Service, later the World Service.

29 November 1934 Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark at Westminster Abbey. National Programme.

20 November 1947 Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey. Home Service.

6 May 1960 Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey. Home Service.

8 June 1961 Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Katharine Worsley at York Minster. Light Programme.

24 April 1963 Princess Alexandra and Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey. Home Service.

14 November 1973 Princess Anne and Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey. Radio 2 & Radio 4.

29 July 1981 Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral. Radio 2 & Radio 4.

23 July 1986 Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey. Radio 2 & Radio 4.

19 June 1999 Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones at Windsor Castle. Radio 2.

9 April 2005 Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles at Windsor Guildhall. Radio 4 FM.

29 April 2011 Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey. Radio 4 & Radio 5 live.

19 May 2018 Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Radio 4 & Radio 5 live.

This is the Derby and this is the race

 

In this post its back 61 years to a beautiful early summer’s day at Epsom Downs for the 181^st running of the Derby Stakes.

The first radio commentary on The Derby was on 1 June 1927 with George Allison setting the scene and race commentary from Geoffrey Gilbey, a racing journalist who’d worked for the Sunday Express as ‘Tattenham’, the Racing Specialist and, from 1927, as ‘Larry Lynx’ in The People. 

The following year Bob Lyle (always billed as R.C. Lyle) , racing correspondent for The Times, read the race – won by Felstead with Harry Wragg riding. Lyle continued to cover the Derby until 1937 when Geoffrey Gilbey was back, this time assisted by his younger brother, also a racing journalist, Quintin Gilbey.

For twenty years the BBC’s main racing commentator was Raymond Glendenning, the moustachioed fast-speaking (measured at clocking up 300 words a minute) all-rounder who also covered football, tennis and boxing. He called his first Epsom Derby in 1940, following a couple of years with Thomas Woodrooffe (he of ‘the Fleet’s Lit up’ fame) at the microphone. Glendenning was assisted by a number of other broadcasters and racing journalists including Wilfrid Taylor, Claude Harrison, Roger Mortimer, Frank More O’Ferrall, Tony Cooke (who went on the join ITV as their first racing commentator) and Peter O’Sullevan, who would, of course, become BBC TV’s voice of racing.   

The commentator for the 1961 Derby was Peter Bromley, for four decades the voice of racing on BBC radio. Bromley had been involved in racing since the early 50s, first as an assistant trainer and amateur jockey and then from 1955 as a course commentator (working for British Racecourse Amplifying and Recording Company, now known as Racetech) at a time when it was still a novel occupation.  He worked as a paddock commentator for ITV before moving to BBC television as third man to Peter O’Sullevan and Clive Graham.

In 1959 he took up the new post as BBC Racing Correspondent split between tv and radio. Radio, in particular Sports Report, wasn’t that keen to use him as editor Angus Mackay favoured ex-print journalists. Bromley recalled one run in with Mackay when he was asked to do a one and a half minute piece on the Gold Cup. However, Peter thought that Wednesday’s Champion Hurdle race provided what he and his producer, Tony Preston, thought was a newsworthy item as it had been won by a one-eyed horse and an amateur jockey. His report began with a 20 second mention of this before going onto the Gold Cup. Getting torn off a strip for departing from his brief he sent a memo to Mackay that pointed out: (a) I was convinced that there was a news story in the Champions Hurdle, (b) I suggested the 20 seconds to the producer before the programme, who accepted it, (c) I did not over –run and (d) I did tip the winner of the Gold Cup. His reply from Angus simply read (a) We weren’t, (b) He didn’t, (c) You’re not expected to and (d) You are expected to.

Radio did relent and within a year Glendenning had retired from racing commentary (though he continued to cover football until early 1964) and Peter was offered the position of BBC Radio Racing Correspondent starting in early 1961 providing the main commentary on the 50 or so races per annum as well as sports news reports, previews and reviews.         

Bromley’s first Classic was the Grand National that March and by the time the Derby came along he’d already covered the likes of the 1.000 and 2,000 Guineas, Royal Ascot and Goodwood. Helping Peter at that time, reading the starting prices (something the BBC had shied away from until ITV started reporting on the betting in 1958) and reviewing the race was Roger Mortimer. For 29 years (1947-75) he was the racing correspondent of the Sunday Times and continued to broadcast alongside Peter until 1971. The other voice, down at the paddock, is that of Michael Seth-Smith. Michael was also a course commentator but during the 60s and 70s (and as late as 1985) was BBC radio’s second racing commentator.      

By the 1970s Bromley was commentating on over 200 races a year, all viewed through his pair of German binoculars, a relic of the Second World War. By the time of his retirement in 2001, following that year’s running of the Derby, he’d commentated on over 200 Classics and 10,000 races. He died two years later in June 2003, just four days before the running of the Derby.    

Back to 1961 and radio coverage of the Derby was slotted into the schedule on the Light Programme between Woman’s Hour and Music While You Work on Wednesday 31 May. This is typical of the sports scheduling at the time which, aside from Saturdays or Test Match Special, had to jostle for position amongst the music shows, comedy and magazine programmes.  The continuity announcer introducing the coverage is Bryan Martin.   

Note how formal this coverage now seems to modern ears. Just the voices of the three broadcasters, no interviews with owners or jockeys, no real sense of atmosphere, no colour.

As to the race itself there was a very full field of 28 horses with Moutiers as 5-1 favourite, whilst the eventual winner, Psidium started at 66-1. He ran the first half of the race at the back of the field and it was only in the last furlong when French jockey Roger Poincelet pulled Psidium to the outside, that it made a finishing burst to the line winning by 2 lengths. The horse was trained at Newmarket by Harry Wragg, by a neat coincidence the jockey on that second broadcast Derby 33 years earlier.

Once again this recording was made by the late Eric Bartington and I extend my thanks to Gerad de Roo who rescued it and passed it to me.

The title of this post comes from the poem The Derby by Henry Birtles.

   

Trooping the Colour

 

The annual Trooping of the Colour has been a part of British life for a little over 260 years and from the accession of King George in 1820 it’s been an annual event to mark the Official Birthday of the Sovereign. Radio coverage of the ceremony dates back 95 years to 1927 and it resumed again in 1930 continuing until 1994. Only the war years and cancellations for bad weather (1948) and a national rail strike (1955) stopped the Trooping.

That first broadcast on 5 June 1926 carries no detail in the Radio Times, indeed it is only listed as a simultaneous broadcast with London for stations 2ZY Manchester, 5PY Plymouth and 5SX Swansea. However, 2LO in London makes no mention of it but the BBC and the listings magazine were slowly recovering from the General Strike so this may account for it.

Throughout the thirties the Trooping of the Colour was narrated for BBC radio by the wonderfully named Major James Bourne Seaburne Bourne-May, late of the Coldstream Guards where he saw 20 years service and took part in the ceremony himself on five occasions.    

When it returned after the war in 1947 Wynford Vaughan-Thomas commentated. In 1949 and 1950 Brian Johnston was at the microphone and from 1951 to 1960 the master himself Richard Dimbleby. The post-war radio coverage, usually midweek or on Saturdays – it didn’t become a Saturday only fixture until 1966 – was on the Light Programme, shifting to the Home Service (later Radio 4) in 1959.

From 1961 to 1981 Robert Hudson (pictured above) was the radio commentator, also taking over the Remembrance Sunday service from the Cenotaph the following year. Preparations for the broadcast took Hudson two weeks and “included visits to the Regiment trooping the colour to the Household Cavalry at Knightsbridge Barracks and to the band rehearsals at Chelsea Barracks. In the course of these I would interview all the key figures in the parade and submit myself to the lavish hospitality of the Officers’ Mess. A Guard’s gin and tonic is quite unlike any other”.

For his final broadcast in 1981 he had amassed “sixteen pages of notes, pasted on cardboard” on an upturned box on the window ledge of his vantage point in the Horse Guards Building. “I plan to give fifty-two separate pieces of commentary during the ninety-minute broadcast. Each will be preceded by a cue-light signal to our engineers in a small room behind. Instantly they lower the volume of the sound behind my voice; a split-second operation”.

When Robert Hudson stepped down the commentary in 1982 and 1983 was provided by former cricketer turned commentator Neil Durden-Smith. The cricket connection was perhaps no coincidence as Hudson had been the producer of Test Match Special for many years. From 1984 to 1990 sports commentator (mainly golf, tennis and skiing) Julian Tutt covered the ceremony. He would go on to provide the Trooping the Colour commentary for BBC television. Finally between 1991 and 1994 it was the turn of Tom Fleming. BBC radio then dropped their coverage, but it continues as a tv event.

For this recording of Robert Hudson’s first commentary on the Trooping of the Colour we go back to 10.55 am on Saturday 10 June 1961 when listeners to the BBC Home Service heard this.

Once again this recording was made by the late Eric Bartington and I extend my thanks to Gerad de Roo who rescued it and passed it to me.