The Story of the Light

On Saturday 28 July 1945 the BBC closed the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme (AEF) and, at least for domestic listeners, the General Forces Programme (GFP). The following day Sunday 29 July, as the BBC week at that time began on a Sunday, regional broadcasting returned to the Home Service and a new station came on air, the BBC Light Programme.

The Light Programme was carried on 1500m (200 kHz) long wave from Droitwich (with some filling-in on 261m MW), the first time long wave transmitters had been used for domestic broadcasts since before the war. Immediately before the Light came on air 1500m had been used by the European Service. 

A number of GFP entertainment shows were carried over to the Light: from Variety Bandbox and Music While You Work to Grand Hotel and ITMA. By the following year programmes such as Family Favourites, Housewives Choice and Woman’s Hour had been commissioned, programmes which helped to define the Light and give it some of radio’s largest audiences

It would be lovely to bring you some of the highlights of that first day of broadcasting on the Light but sadly the BBC kept just 50 seconds. That recording features the voice of Chief Assistant Tom Chalmers (he’d become the Controller of the network three years later) followed by the start of a news bulletin read by Alvar Lidell. In Tom’s opening announcement there was the word ‘entertainment’ right from the off:

Good morning everyone, this is the BBC Light Programme on wavelengths of 1500 and 261 metres. It’s the first time we’ve said those words, BBC Light Programme, which we hope are going to mean for you now, and in the days to come, all that is best in radio entertainment from nine o’clock in the morning till midnight.

  

By way of contrast the BBC did retain the last programmes transmitted on the AEF including the hour long Farewell AEF and the final moments with the news read by Guy Belmont, prayers from the Rev V Russell and announcer Margaret Hubble. A minute or so of Marjorie Anderson closing the General Forces Programme has also survived. In case you’re wondering, over on the Home Service the only surviving archive is that of Regional Director Melville Dinwiddie welcoming listeners to the Scottish Home Service.  

This year marks the 80^th anniversary of the launch of the Light in 1945, a network that would broadcast for the next 22 years until its demise in September 1967 and the arrival of Radios 1 and 2. The BBC are not marking the anniversary, though Boom Radio are when David Hamilton recalls listening to the Light and appearing on it in a programme airing at 9pm on Tuesday 29 July. However, in 2017 on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of BBC Radio 2 did tell The Story of the Light in a two-part programme presented by Paul O’Grady.  

The first episode of The Story of the Light was broadcast on 18 September 2017. You’ll hear reminiscences from (in order of appearance) Nicholas Parsons, Petula Clark, Denis Norden, Esther Rantzen, Tony Blackburn, Ken Bruce, Pete Murray, June Whitfield, Paul Hollingdale, Barry Cryer,  Owen Money, Johnny Beerling, Angela Rippon, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Judith Chalmers. 

In this first show a number of contributors refer the BBC‘s ‘forces programme’. The term seems to be used interchangeably for two distinct services. The history gets a bit complicated here so this is my attempt to summarise it. 

There was the Allied Expeditionary Service, an Anglo-American station (half British and Canadian and half American in content) aimed at troops in north-west Europe that ran from 7 June 1944 to 28 July 1945 (see my June 2014 post Oranges and Lemons). This service had been inspired by the American Forces Network which had started on 4 July 1943 and used several low-power transmitters to provide entertainment for US troops based in the UK. The AFN featured mainly American programmes, many of them shipped in from the States, as well as relaying some BBC programmes. The BBC would start to re-broadcast the AFN on its shortwave transmitters.     

The other more home-grown service was the General Forces Programme. This had started on Sunday 27 February 1944 and was an amalgam of what had been the Forces Programme plus programmes from the General Overseas Service (what would eventually become the World Service).  The Forces Programme itself had started on Sunday 7 January 1940 initially offering some evening alternatives to the Home Service but broadcasting all day later that year.  The General Forces Programme didn’t end when the Light Programme launched and continued on short-wave for members of the forces overseas. It shared programmes and resources with the General Overseas Service as well as taking some programmes from the Home and Light. The title General Forces Programme was dropped after 31 December 1946.   

The second episode of The Story of the Light was broadcast on 25 September 2017. Adding their memories are Ken Bruce, Esther Rantzen, David Hamilton, Russell Davies, Pete Murray, Angela Rippon, Paul Hollingdale, Judith Chalmers, Johnnie Walker, Barry Cryer, Tony Blackburn, Petula Clark, Brian Reynolds, Gerald Jackson, Brian Matthew and Johnny Beerling.

The Story of the Light was produced by Derek Webster and Ashley Byrne and was a Made in Manchester Production for BBC Radio 2.     

The passage of time does, of course, mean that some memories can get a little muddled. In case you’re taking notes In Town Tonight was never on the Light Programme but on the Home Service.

For more on the Light Programme head back to my blog posts On the Light published in July and August 2015 plus more recent posts Back in Time on the Light and this year on the subject of The Robinson Family, Go Man Go, Mrs Dale’s Diary and Make Way for Music.

Announcer and presenter Roger Moffat, on duty for the last programme on the Light, read the news bulletin at 2am on Saturday 30 September 1967 to close down the station for final time. “There we end broadcasting in the Light Programme, not just for today but, as it seems, forever.”