Vernon’s Vault

If you’ve tuned in to Vernon Kay’s Radio 2 show just after 10 am you’ll be familiar with the feature Vernon’s Vault where old radio and tv recordings are dusted down and given an airing. Quirky reports from the like of Nationwide, Tomorrow’s World or by Fyfe Robertson seem to be particular favourites. 

Vernon’s Vault itself is introduced by a selection of clips that runs for just 15 seconds. But have you ever wondered what they are? Well wonder no more, here’s the answer.

Here’s what you hear in quick succession:

Stand by for switching, get tuned to Radio 2, 2LO Calling, This is direct television, This is London, BBC Radio 2, Billed as the greatest show on earth, One thing’s never going to change, They think it’s all over, Radio 2, go [Cue theme]  

So let’s pull this thing apart and see what we have here.

“Stand by for switching, get tuned to Radio 2.” This is Robin Scott, the first Controller of Radio 1 and Radio 2 at the launch of Radio 1 on Saturday 30 September 1967. 

“2LO Calling.” This clip proved the most difficult to track down with 100% certainty and I pestered a few people to get to the bottom of it. It’s obviously a re-creation of an opening announcement from when the BBC started in November 1922. There’s a similar announcement on track 1 of the double CD 75 Years of the BBC but that has no credit and the voice isn’t quite the same. For the BBC’s 100^th anniversary a recording of Arthur Burrows, the first director of programmes and the man that read the opening news bulletin, was released but here he says “2LO, Marconi House, London Calling” rather than just “2LO Calling”, though that could be down to a bit of editing. In the full recording of Burrows here he talks about the BBC starting 15 years earlier and that he is talking in 1937. That suggests it’s his contribution to Scrapbook for 1922 broadcast on the Regional Programme on 21 January 1937 and repeated on the National Programme the following day. I know that BBC Sound Archives retained this programme so on balance I’ve gone for that date.         

“This is direct television” is the voice of Elizabeth Cowell, the first female TV announcer. The clip comes from a film made of test transmissions at the Radiolympia exhibition at Alexandra Palace in August 1936.

“This is London” is the unmistakeable voice of announcer John Snagge. The clip is his D-Day announcement on 6 June 1944.

“BBC Radio 2” comes from the start of BBC Radio 2 at 5.30 am on Saturday 30 September 1967. Presenting Breakfast Special that day was staff announcer Paul Hollingdale.

“Billed as the greatest show on earth” is Newsbeat’s Frank Partridge reporting ahead of the Live Aid concert on Saturday 13 July 1985. I found a recording of this in the Radio 1 documentary Live Aid – One Year On.

“One thing that’s never going to change” comes from the last ever scene of The Dales, previously known as Mrs Dale’s Diary. Jessie Matthews plays Mary Dale who was always worried about her husband Jim, played here by Charles Simon. The final episode aired on BBC Radio 2 on Friday 25 April 1969.

“They think it’s all over” is part of the famous BBC tv commentary by Kenneth Wolstenholme for the 1966 World Cup Final between England and West Germany just as Geoff Hurst scores his decisive last minute goal. The final was played on Saturday 30 July 1966.

“Radio 2 go” is again from that Robin Scott announcement.

And finally what of the Vernon’s Vault theme. That’s a piece of production music from BMG Production library called Bygone Bumps. Composed by Ron Baines, it’s a track on the Vintage Sunshine album from Deep East Music. I’ve also used part of a performance of the track by members of the brass section of the BBC Philharmonic as featured on Vernon’s show on 15 December 2023.

All those clips appear in this video sequence I’ve put together.

With thanks to Phil McGarvey, Janine Maya-Smith and Mark Punter

If you have been, thanks for listening

Long-time listeners of BBC Radio 4 who have been enjoying Greg James's new series Rewinder may have an unerring sense of deja-vu. Yes, for a programme that makes a virtue of dipping into the Beeb's sound archives it's a recycled idea. For the best part of twenty years Radio 4 offered listeners a regular Monday morning archive programme. And the voice most associated with that slot was John Ebdon.

Ebdon came to radio in 1962 after his voice was heard by BBC producer Denys Gueroult at the London Planetarium where Ebdon was providing commentaries (he later became the director). He has asked to make occasional broadcasts for the programme, A World of Sound (Home Service then Radio 4 1960-69) which featured recordings from the Sound Archive linked together by Ebdon, adopting a style which would later be described as "whimsical musings with which he threaded carefully excavated conversational snippets."  Essentially adopting a storytelling role, a similar series developed specifically for Ebdon, Nonsense at Noon (Home Service 1966-67), followed and he also gave talks on Woman's Hour and Home this Afternoon.

Some of the A World of Sound programmes filled the post Today gap at quarter to nine on Monday mornings when Yesterday in Parliament wasn't on and they usually consisted of sound archive material with presenters like Robert Stannage, Ann Meo, Alan Keith and Harold Abrahams with Memories of the Month), as well as John Ebdon. When Radio 4 came along that 15-minute slot was variously filled by short, usually humorous talks as well as more mining of archive from a clutch of presenters that included Ebdon (see below), eventually adopting the long-running Radio Times billing of "John Ebdon, in which continues his investigation of the BBC Sound Archives but once again comes to no serious conclusion".  His opening greeting "How do you do?" and sign-off "If you have been, thanks for listening" became catchphrases.    

From 1968 until the end of 1986 John's rummage amongst the archive clips aired every 3 or 4 weeks. Though only 15 minutes long they were carefully crafted and involved hours of research and writing that John totally immersed himself in.    

In Hello Again! Simon Elmes recalls how John worked: "Slim, feline and svelte, John would pace into the office and, in exactly the same almost reproachful and tentative manner he adopted on air, greet us with a cheery 'hello'. He would then head off for days of incarceration in his favourite eyrie in the Archive, mining for fragments of old recordings which he could lift in order to 'illustrate' his lightly witty narratives"

John's real life Siamese cat Perseus (surely the inspiration for Ed Reardon's Elgar?) was an unseen and unheard presence in many of the broadcasts and was often used to voice some of his more contentious opinions. When Perseus passed onto kitty heaven it made the Radio 4 news and a newspaper obit.

Ebdon, born in 1923, had since boyhood had a passion for Greece and its history and culture. As one of his producers of the Monday archive programme, Angela Hind recalls he was "So educated; so brilliant, so bonkers.  He was obsessed with Greece - he'd lived there for years and loved the place.  He reminded me of Byron in that respect.... anything Greek he absolutely adored.  He was the only man I knew (back then it was most unusual) - to wear a kaftan when he was relaxing at home"

The programmes, produced by the Archive Features department under Head Producer Helen Fry (the department was also responsible for Pick of the Week,  Bookshelf, Enquire Within and The Year in Question) required only a light touch from whichever producer was assigned to the quarter to nine Monday series. Angela Hinds told me "I never had to do anything much at all.  He chose the subject, researched the archive, chose the bits he wanted and wrote the script - which he then ran past me with timings all neatly written in the margin.  I was quite amazed that I had any role at all, especially as a producer! I learnt a lot from him really too - as the scripts were punctuated with quotations, observations about life and extraordinary facts.  Which by the way - I never checked.  I just assumed he knew what he was talking about".

"The programme that John presented, was really just a platform for him to indulge his passion (finding the archive); and to be totally in charge of something in his golden years.   A really lovely chap - and producing the programme really wasn't producing at all.  Just had to be a sounding board for someone who seemed to know what they were doing". 

His obituary in The Times picked out one of Ebdon’s best archive programmes was "an example of his more serious social comments" and was based on Budget speeches. "He listened to every budget speech between 1931 and 1968. Whether the Chancellor was Chamberlain, Cripps or Jenkins, in Ebdon’s view the speeches were meaningless, saying the same things in clichés. He cut and reassembled fragments from them which told you all you need to know about political speeches".

John stepped down from regular broadcasting in 1986 and a special John  Ebdon's
Silver Archive aired in December 

John stepped down from the archive programmes in 1986 though he continued writing and also working for the Planetarium for another 3 years. He suffered for many years from cancer of the spine and died in 2005.

I don't have an exact date for this recording but it's probably early 1986. Here John pokes some gentle fun at the medium itself and moves into Jonathan Hewat bloopers territory with some broadcasting slips of the tongue and corpsing.

Other broadcasters heard on the Monday morning archive slot on BBC Radio 4 from 1967 until it ended in 1989 included Wilfrid Thomas, David Franklin, Norman Turner, Steve Race, Christopher Matthew, Rene Cutforth, James Cameron, Ray Gosling, Miles Kingston. Glyn Worsnip, Ian Skidmore, Phil Smith and Andy Kershaw. As well as Angela Hind producers included Helen Fry, Brian Cook, Anne Howells, Andrew Parfitt (later Controller of Radio 1), Fran Acheson and Kate Fenton.

With thanks to Angela Hind and Tessa Kulik

Putting You Through

Phones and tablets are now practically welded to our bodies. Perhaps you are what Allison Pearson recently described as a fomo sapien. That’s Fear of Missing Out. A generation characterised by “an itchy thumb and short attention spans”.

Ironically the UK was initially slow to adapt to the telephone but its business and domestic use was recognised early on in the United States; by the end of the 1920s 40% of US households had one. An oft quoted statement by the then chief engineer of the General Post Office sums up the British attitude.

“There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here,” he told a House of Commons committee. "Here we have a super-abundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind. The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes. Few have worked at the telephone much more than I have, I have one in my office but more for show. If I want to send a message - I employ a boy to take it."

When businesses did adopt the telephone, rather than sending message boys or telegrams one presumes, they had to adopt the necessary telephone etiquette, what we would now call telephone techniques or customer service skills.  

Of course the BBC, being the BBC, cut a telephone training record for those working on the switchboard, all women at the time of course. Dating from 1953 here are extracts from it linked by Miles Kington (taken from a programme I recorded in July 1980).