This is Valletta Calling

Whilst reading about or researching a certain generation of broadcasters - I'm thinking of the likes Brian Matthew, David Jacobs, John Dunn, Keith Skues, David Hamilton and Peter Donaldson - there's one common aspect to their career: that they first gained their experience on the airwaves of British Forces radio.

I was reminded of this last year whilst holidaying in Malta. The island had been home to BFBS radio until 1979 so I set about discovering more of the station's history.

The studios of BFBS Malta were in part of the barracks at St Francis Ravelin in Floriana, a kilometre or so outside the walled capital of Valletta. When the British forces vacated Malta in 1979 the building was handed over to the Government and was now the base for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Finding the building should have been straightforward but I lost my way and popped into a local newsagent for directions where I discovered the Maltese refer to it as "meepa" rather than M.E.P.A.

I'd already arranged to have a quick look around the complex and take some photos after getting the OK from Peter Gingell, the Communications and PR Manager, rather than risk being stopped at the gate by security or, worse, arrested by the Maltese Police. There's no obvious evidence of the building's former use but the colonnaded arcades are immediately recognisable from some of the old photographs I've seen online.

Malta's tiny size (if Sicily is the football to Italy's boot, then Malta is a golf ball) belies its strategic and political significance. Part of the British Empire since 1814 it played an important role during the Second World War and endured continual bombardment for which the island was awarded the George Cross.

In the aftermath of the war, in 1947, plans were made to shift the base of the Forces Broadcasting Service for the Middle East to the island. The studios would be based at St Francis Ravelin but the short-wave transmitter site had been acquired by the Royal Artillery. Ultimately the idea foundered due to lack of resources. There were plans for two continuity studios, a control room and a recording channel but the delivery of the short-wave equipment to Zonker Point delayed full transmissions until 1950. But by March 1951 the station was forced to close when the decision was made to shift operations to Fayid in Egypt.          

A radio service returned to Malta, albeit briefly, in 1953 at the insistence of Lord Louis Mountbatten, then Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. He decided that the fleet should have its own VHF radio service. The MFBS broadcast from a studio in Lascaris Ditch (the site of the war rooms that are now open to the public and are well worth a visit) with records borrowed from FBS Tripoli and Transcription Service discs from the BBC.

I can't exactly establish when the MFBS closed, possibly it was 1955 when Mountbatten moved on, but the Forces Broadcasting Service returned to Malta in 1959, though again it was beset with funding problems. In 1963 the BFBS Director noted that the Maltese service had "inadequate staff and obsolete technical facilities." Further funding was agreed but it was not until 1967 when equipment was returned from Nairobi and Tripoli that the studios and transmitter got an upgrade.

Malta gained independence in 1964 but British forces remained in place. The importance of a properly equipped station with professional broadcasters, rather than relying on volunteers, was seen as crucial especially in times of an "internal security situation", as they euphemistically called any local unrest. New staff were in place and a stereo VHF service was eventually in operation on 2 June 1970 when the London-based Family Favourites presenter Michael Aspel  (below with Ted King and Kay Donnelly) formally opened the new studios.

The British presence in Malta, and with it the BFBS station, seemed to be coming to an end when Dom Mintoff's Labour Government was elected in June 1971 and he called for all British troops to leave by January, later moved to March, of the following year. In 1972 BFBS managed to broadcast an edition of Family Favourites from HMS Bulwark, moored in the Grand Harbour for the evacuation. However, at the eleventh hour Mintoff struck a deal with the UK and NATO allowing the service to stay; BFBS Malta re-opened for business that June.

In January 1978 the station refreshed its sound with longer programme sequences and round the clock broadcasting (the so called Format 77). That same year RichardAstbury, who would become a very familiar name to BFBS listeners around the world, arrived in Malta. He was briefed that British Forces would indeed be pulling out as soon as practicable. The political situation was becoming more and more tense and that summer Astbury was asked to drop any news about Malta from the news bulletins. At the time the station relied on the 'rip and read' teleprinter service of the BBC's General News Service during the day and carried a relay of the World Service overnight.

The situation came to a head in July 1978 when a news story came through about Dom Mintoff's daughter having been arrested in London for throwing horse manure from the Public Gallery in the House of Commons. Richard Astbury checked whether the World Service had carried it, which it had, so he included it in a bulletin. That evening he was summoned to report to the British High Commissioner who told him that the Foreign Office had ordered that BFBS should cease broadcasting from midnight. Escorted back to the studios he did indeed close it down. For the next three months nothing but a test tone was broadcast.

Eventually, by October, the ban was lifted and BFBS Malta continued for its final six months. In March 1979 the British had withdrawn and again it fell to Richard Astbury to do the honours: "Queues of locals turned up at the front door with flowers and gifts to say thank you and farewell. Having made the closing announcement we threw a cocktail party for friends of the station and it was almost over. The following afternoon I met representatives from the Malta government and handed over the keys. BFBS Malta closed for good."

This audio is provided by Juergen Boernig of the BFBS RadioShow Archive:       

With thanks to Peter Gingell of MEPA, Juergen (JP) Boernig at Radio International and Alan Grace author of The Link with Home - Sixty Years of Forces Radio (BFBS 2003)

Radio Lives - Don Durbridge

Former BFBS and BBC broadcaster Don Durbridge died last weekend. Don became a regular voice on Radio 2 during the late 70s/early 80s and lived and worked in Kent for many years.

Don was born in Glasgow in 1939 at a time when his father was in the Army (he died in a Japanese POW camp in 1945) but educated down in Clapham. His first job was with the Jack Hylton Entertainment Organisation but he also worked on various local newspapers in London before becoming a reporter on the Sunday Citizen. 

His first broadcast was as a teenager in 1955 on the Light Programme show The Younger Generation (“young people discussing the current films, books, plays and tunes they like”), having answered an ad in the Radio Times. He made over 200 appearances before receiving his National Service call-up.

In 1962 Don married his first wife Yvonne, whom he'd know for eight years.  Four years later he started to broadcast for the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) in Aden, Cologne and finally Gibraltar. In Germany he worked on the Six-Thirty and Time Out shows and in 1969/1970 co-presented Family Favourites with Michael Aspel, first from Cologne and then Gibraltar.

In 1972 Don was one of the BFBS team assigned to cover the Munich Olympics and he achieved something of a worldwide scoop in gaining, with some subterfuge, an exclusive interview with multi-gold winning swimmer Mark Spitz.

Don joined the Radio 2 Presentation Team in 1974 as announcer and newsreader as well as presenting a whole host of shows such as Night Ride, Music through Midnight, Music to Midnight, The Late Show, The Early Show and Saturday Night with the BBC Radio Orchestra. He also deputised for Terry Wogan, John Dunn, Ed Stewart, David Hamilton and Joe Henderson.

As well as his national work Don was also presenting on BBC Radio Medway and still providing boxing and football commentaries for the BFBS. Such was his love of sport he was the matchday announcer at Gillingham FC for many years.  

It was whilst working at BBC Radio Kent that Don met Ian McGregor. Ian takes up the story:

It was 10:28 on a Saturday morning in 1988.  I was the 'phone flicker at BBC Radio Kent's Sun Pier studio back then, and the new boy at the time. But the next programme was due to start in two minutes and there was no sign of the presenter.  I'd already slipped into the studio and lined up his name check jingle and first record (yes, record!), but, as the clock ticked seemingly more furiously towards the bottom of the hour, a feeling of mild panic was coming over me.....

And then Don appeared, 'Durbers' as I was soon to know him.  If truth be told, he looked like he'd just got out of bed - and that wasn't so far from the truth.  He'd already completed a gruelling newsreading night shift at the forces radio station BFBS, driven home for a couple of hours 'kip' and, after a cruelly short period of shut eye, raced to the BBC's Chatham studio to present his popular Saturday morning show Remember When.  I asked Don if there was anything I needed to arrange, and he calmly replied "let's just busk it mate".

And busk it is what Don did, brilliantly well.  A few records, seemingly endless reminiscences about the artists performing them, a massive pile of postcards from his adoring fans (his pigeon hole was always the fullest) and a continuous stream of anecdotes from callers was all he needed to make an entertaining radio programme; and the phone lines didn't stop flashing for the entire show, it was easily the busiest programme I ever worked on.  Don was old school, he didn't need scripts and running orders to keep his listeners' spellbound; his knowledge was in his head, his autocue in his brain, he was a born communicator and knew how to 'work' an audience, how to make the show feel like theirs and how to keep them sitting on the edge of their seats - and the listeners loved him.

Don continued his broadcasting career at Invicta Sound, Channel Travel Radio, LBC, Saga, Prime Time and REM-FM. In his tribute to Don, Ian continues:

 

After a short spell living and working in Malta in the nineties where he married his second wife Cheryl, they returned to Minster on the Isle of Sheppey in the beautiful county of Kent, as he referred to his adopted home, in 1997, and from there re-launched his broadcasting career, tossing out the gramophone decks and needles to embrace the digital broadcasting age.

He was soon back behind the microphone at Channel Travel Radio in Folkestone giving out cross channel information to motorists on the M20. It was the first time he'd presented a computerised radio programme, it may even have been the first time he'd used a computer, but he took to it like a duck to water.

A stint as weekend newsreader for London talk station LBC followed, but his re-launch ship finally came steaming into harbour with the arrival of the new over fifties national digital service, Primetime Radio and its DAB sister station, Saga Radio. Don was back amongst the golden oldies doing what he enjoyed most, and with not a vinyl disc or a CD in sight!

When Saga Radio finally ceased broadcasting in 2006, Don emigrated to Estepona on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain. His final radio stop was with REM FM (now Talk Radio Europe), where he presented weekend shows with a mix of music, chat and celebrity guests as diverse as the entertainer Max Bygraves and the jazz loving politician Ken Clarke.

Don passed away in Spain on June 9, 2012.  He was a friend as well as a colleague in an industry that has many colleagues but few real friends.  He will be much missed but fondly remembered. 

He is survived by his first wife, Yvonne, and also leaves a daughter, Moira, and a grandson, Teddy.

Don Durbridge 13 January 1939 - 9 June 2012

 

Ian McGregor runs Just Talking and you can read his full tribute here.

With thanks to Who’s Who in Radio by Sheila Tracy.