Radio Lives - Judith Chalmers

‘You take more holidays than Judith Chalmers’ or a sarcastic ‘does Judith Chalmers have a passport?’ was a reflection as to just how hard wired Judith was into the public consciousness through her globe-trotting reports for Wish You Were Here...? When she started to front the new ITV show in 1974 Judith had already been broadcasting for over twenty years. Starting as a child actor on radio in the 1950s by the following decade she was a ubiquitous presence on radio and television switching from announcing, presenting, commentating and interviewing with consummate ease. She would enjoy a broadcasting career that spanned seven decades but sadly her death, at the age of 90, was announced last month.    

Judith’s break into radio came about thanks to her elocution teacher who suggested that her parents write in for an audition with the BBC.  “I had been to speech training classes to iron out my accent and had appeared in school plays but I never had any burning desire to be an actress.” Her audition in front of the Children’s Hour organiser in Manchester, Nan Macdonald, was on 1 April 1949. She passed it with one panel member noting her ‘excellent quality of voice, with a firm, responsive range, rather elocuted.’  

So it was that, at a mere 13-years of age, young Judith started to be cast in Children’s Hour plays. Her first appearance was in June 1949 in an adaptation of one of the Brydon family books written by Kathleen Fidler. Judith played the daughter Susan, a character name she’d get used to as she also played Susan in the 1951 stories about the Small family and in 1957 was cast as Jimmy’s sister Susan in the first series of The Clitheroe Kid. Mind you, just to confuse things she also played Jimmy’s sister Judith Clitheroe in Call Boy, another radio series with the diminutive star.  

Many of the Children’s Hour plays from Manchester were directed by Trevor Hill and it was Trevor that was instrumental in spotting Judith’s potential and offering her presenting roles on radio and eventually on television. In 1956 Judith was involved with the new BBC tv venture Children’s Television Club, seen as a forerunner to Blue Peter. Presented by Wilfred Pickles and Trevor Hill the first edition featured the Royal Iris steamer at Wallasey. Judith was on hand to greet viewers from the foot of the gangway and later introduced musical items played by the Merseyside Youth Orchestra. That same year she was posing questions to youth club teams competing for Brainiest Club in the North for the Home Service teenage magazine show Out of School.  In November she was in the cast for Collision by Vernon Sproxton. Other young actors in that production included Alan Rothwell, who also died last month, and Bryan Martin, who would go on to be a Radio 4 announcer and newsreader.  Rothwell would appear as David Barlow in Coronation Street and he was one of a number of future stars of the soap that Judith worked with. At the amateur dramatic group The Unnamed Society she met Doris Speed and for many Children’s Hour productions the resident pianist in Manchester was Violet Carson.  

1956 was also a significant year for Judith as she became a television continuity announcer. Again it was Trevor Hill’s doing and involved the children’s television programme Let’s Get Weaving. At that time all children’s programmes were introduced by announcers based in London but it was proposed that Judith perform this role from Manchester. The only problem was that a vision circuit couldn’t be booked with the Post Office to allow for an audition with the head of TV Presentation Rex Moorefoot, so her first live link became her audition. The Presentation Department liked her style and she became the first regional television announcer. The only problem they had with her was that her dress and set of pearls ‘made her look as if she had left her teens years ago.’ 1956 was also the year that Judith married salesman Arthur Lea but by June 1962 they were divorced, “I was far too young” she said in 1998.

l-r Kenneth Kendall, Judith Chalmers, 
Nan Winton and Michael; Aspel

Eventually the Manchester-based gig led to national television appearances between the programmes, she was the announcer on duty for Boxing Day in 1959 for example. The BBC had decided to re-introduce in-vision announcers and Judith was amongst a small group of woman employed for this role but Polly Elwes, Pauline Tooth, Vera McKechnie and Judith were usually only seen in the afternoons. However, from October 1960 Judith was promoted to be one of the evening announcers alongside Nan Winton, Kenneth Kendall and Michael Aspel. At the same time she was also occasionally presenting the regional news magazine for south-east England Town and Around.

BBC in-vision women announcers 'the charm team' 
Daily Mirror 7 July 1961

Although Judith was working freelance she was pretty much associated with the BBC until Thames signed her up in the early 1970s. However, in 1958 she had appeared for three months as one of the interviewers on Granada’s People and Places working with that broadcasting titan Bill Grundy. That had happened after Judith had been interviewed for the programme about being selected as one of the duty announcers for the Earls Court Radio Show. They liked her that much that she was invited back to join the presenting team. She would also appear on Tyne-Tees with Don Spencer in Gangway (1966) and was David Hamilton’s co-host on the quiz Pop the Question (1968). Also for Tyne-Tees she co-presented the programme aimed at under-sevens called Play with a Purpose with Jimmy Hanley and later Don Spencer (1969-70 & 74).  

Meanwhile back on the radio Judith was working with Morecambe and Wise in their return to BBC radio after three years in the series Laughter Incorporated (1958) and with ex-Goon Michael Bentine for series two and three of Round the Bend (1959-60). She would also start what would be nearly a decade long association with Ken Dodd appearing first in It’s Great to Be Young (1958-60) and then returning in The Ken Dodd Show (1963-67).   

In The Ken Dodd Show there was much fun at Judith’s expense as in this example from the start of the fourth series on 12 June 1966.

Scriptwriter Eddie Braden, or perhaps it was Doddy himself, concocted some increasingly fiendish tongue-twisting opening announcements for Judith to read. Here are a selection from the second and third series. 

Judith wasn’t the only broadcaster in the family. Her younger sister Sandra (together they were known as ‘a couple of Chalmers’) also started on Children’s Hour and would also go on to be an announcer, radio presenter, station manager, programme editor and executive.  Her second husband, they’d married in 1964, was Neil Durden-Smith a radio producer (they met in September 1963 while he was compiling Pick of the Week) who would commentate on cricket on the radio and for both the BBC and ITV, provide hockey commentary for both networks and was one of the resident team on music and general knowledge quiz Treble Chance (BBC Radio 1967-75). Their son Mark is also a television presenter.

Jean Metcalfe and Judith Chalmers in May 1965

In the 1960s Judith really was everywhere, no wonder on Round the Horne J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock wanted to “go up the BBC and get your ‘ands on Judith Chalmers”. She was a DJ on Light Programme shows with titles like Anything Goes, Put Out the Lights and After Midnight plus a rather longer stint co-hosting Records Around the World with Paddy Feeny, a joint World Service/Light Programme request show. On the subject of worldwide hook-ups she took over Jean Metcalfe’s chair, when Jean was on holiday, at the London end of Family Favourites, radio’s most-listened to show, between 1964 and 1967. She was one of the regular presenters of Woman’s Hour and later Weekend Woman’s Hour from 1967 to 1974. She’s first appeared on the programme as early as 1957.

Over on BBC television Judith was the host of Come Dancing plus a few other dance-related shows (1961-65) and commentated on the ladies’ fashions at Royal Ascot (1963-69) as well as providing ‘the women’s viewpoint’ on Henley Royal Regatta coverage (1964-68). As for her own fashion tastes, if you are to believe the press adverts that she lent her face to in 1968, she had a preference for Clarks Casuals. ‘I’m for the soft life in shoes. I’m sure you’re the same.’      

In the 1970s Judith became a familiar face for ITV viewers. In September 1972 she joined the team of presenters for the daytime magazine show Good Afternoon (later re-titled Afternoon Plus). Clips of her on the programme surfaced recently (you can find some on YouTube) as part of the 90^th birthday celebrations for Dame Mary Berry as Mary was the resident cook on the show.

A little over a year, in January 1974, Judith launched a new series to ITV, Wish You Were Here... ? for which she is best remembered as the perma-tanned presenter reporting from exotic locations or maybe just a Butlin’s holiday camp. Filming would take up between six and nine months of the year though that didn’t necessarily mean she saw much of the places she reported from. “The trouble was it was very hard work. Only four days in a place at a time. Arriving in Britain from San Francisco one night and flying to St Tropez the next. The schedule was exhausting. I really needed a holiday afterwards.”  The programme was seen as a competitor to the well-established BBC series Holiday that had already been running for five years. Its main presenter was Cliff Michelmore who was, of course, married to Jean Metcalfe whose career had crossed with Judith’s at the BBC. Judith presented over 500 editions by the time she was replaced (by Anthea Turner) in 1996, though she continued to film reports for the programme until its demise in 2003.      

Also for ITV Judith was part of the commentary team for the wedding of Princess Anne (1973) and Charles and Diana (1981) as well as hosting the Miss World Contests (from 1980) after the BBC dropped their coverage.     

Radio 4's Weekend programme with
Norman Tozer 4 October 1975

Meanwhile, back on BBC radio Judith was still regularly employed by Radio 4 as presenter of the phone-in Tuesday Call (1973-86) and the Saturday afternoon magazine show Weekend which she co-hosted with Norman Tozer. Both programmes were produced by the Woman’s Hour Unit which, by 1983, would be headed by Judith’s sister Sandra.

On Radio 2 Judith made dozens of appearances before getting her own show in 1990. She was on hand to ‘mingle with the personalities’ for the Boat Race, the Grand National and the Derby and co-hosted OBs from race meetings with John Dunn and David Hamilton. She covered for the holidaying Gloria Hunniford and John Dunn and worked with Ken Bruce on a number of specials: Ken and Judith at the Paris Air Show, Ken and Judith’s Geordie Day (from Beamish) and Ken and Judith’s Worcester Sauce (from Worcester Cathedral).     

Part of a number of BBC Radio 2 schedule
changes in April 1990

A schedule re-shuffle in April 1990 meant that Ken Bruce was moved from his mid-morning show to a late-night slot. Coming in now at 9.30am was Judith Chalmers in a one and half show, between Derek Jameson and Jimmy Young, offering ‘requests and dedications with your choice of music for that special occasion.’ I can only assume that it was due to Wish You Were Here...? filming commitments that she wasn’t on Radio 2 every week. By October 1990 Katie Boyle was presenting the show before Judith returned again from April to September 1991.

Here’s a clip of Judith on her Radio 2 show from 2 July 1991 and it’s a world form today’s Radio 2 with “oh, jolly good indeed” and “here’s a good old song from the mid-60s” and special 90^th birthday messages for veteran commentator Rex Alston. And who should be singing the song from the mid-60s but the very same Dave Berry and the Cruisers that she introduces in the Ken Dodd show.

In September 2017 Judith returned to Radio 2 for a special week of Tracks of My Years to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of the station. Here she is taking to Ken Bruce about her start in radio, her admission that’s she not great at banter, her time on Radio 2, Radio Goes to Town and excitement at sitting next to Ken on her sofa.   

Judith Chalmers 1935-2026