Radio 1 at 50 - Part 1 The New Popular Music Service

From 'Radio 1 is wonderful' to 'listen, watch, share' BBC Radio 1 is the one national network that has had to constantly evolve to address its young audience. Now in its middle age the station, understandably, rarely reflects back on its long history. After all if you remember the launch in 1967 chances are you're aged 60+.  But this month its celebrating its heritage in real style with the pop-up station Radio 1 Vintage, oldies played each weekend on Radio 1's Greatest Hits and a series of  Live Lounge specials.

In this, the first of four blog posts, I dip into the history of the station that once declared itself to be "the nation's favourite".

It's interesting, if ultimately fruitless, to speculate whether Radio 1 would have come about if not for the arrival of the offshore pirates. Before Radio Caroline burst onto the scene at Easter 1964 the old Light Programme offered little to the pop enthusiast; a smattering of current hits across the week, if you were lucky, on Housewives' Choice or Midday Spin and rather better catered for on Saturday Club, Easy Beat and Pick of the Pops.  

Both the BBC and the Government's attitude to popular music was equivocal. Those ex-military types who ended up as BBC producers were presumably immune to the delights of rock 'n' roll. In any case the opportunity to even expand the amount of records aired was always stymied by the restrictive 'needletime' limits, just 28 hours a week across the national services of the Home, Light and Third in the early 60s (though agreement was reached to increase it to 75 hours in 1965).

By the time the pirates came along the first response was to stop them rather than seek an official alternative. As early as October 1964 there was pressure from the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union for the British Government to intervene, although the then Postmaster-General, Tony Benn, found he made slow progress.

It wasn't until February 1966 that we see the first suggestions of a new 'pop music network', though it would be "separately organised from the BBC and incorporating advertisements." A few months later it was floated that the BBC's 247-metre medium wavelength be used. The Corporation itself was of the mind to provide an alternative service, planning it as "a partial substitute for the programmes offered by the pirate broadcasters." The Labour government was, by late 66, more wedded to a long-term commercial hybrid, with the BBC running a new pop service in the short term pending the creation of a new radio corporation partly financed by advertising. However, when the White Paper on broadcasting policy was issued on 20 December 1966 the BBC had won the argument and was authorised to start a 'new popular music programme' on 247 metres "at an early date".

Part of the Corporation's lobbying had included a Q&A in the 8 October 1966 issue of the Radio Times titled Why No Continuous Pop?

Not surprisingly the BBC's response immediately hit back on the issue of needletime, or lack of it. It explained that it wasn't just a case of money. More time could simply not be bought. The bogey men were, it suggested, the gramophone companies who "are in the business to sell records. They are convinced that if they are broadcast too often - especially pop records - their sales will fall off". Apparently the companies claimed to have already lost sales "because of the way the pirates are using pop records". 

The article then went on to partly lay the blame at the door of the Musicians' Union who believed an extension of needletime "would put their members out of jobs. It thinks there would be less work for them in broadcasting because fewer musicians would be used in broadcast or public concerts."

It's hard to believe that the record companies lost sales in the pirate radio era, though I've yet to find any evidence on total sales. Undoubtedly the Musicians' Union argument did hold water, particularly in the broadcast of orchestral music. One casualty of the end of the Light Programme was the loss of Music While You Work for example, though specially recorded and live broadcasts by bands and orchestras continued to be a feature of both Radio 1 and Radio 2 well into the 1970s, even though audiences wanted to hear 'the real thing'. Mind you the BBC didn't exactly endear itself to the MU when it started using American produced PAMS jingles for its new service.

Back to Why No Continuous Pop? and the Corporation was quick to defend itself. "The BBC isn't stuffy about pop. But pop is not the only kind of music". Nor, should it be forgotten, did all the pirate stations play non-stop pop: Radio 390 favoured a 'sweet music' format (plus a little bit of classical and country) and Britain Radio was firmly middle of the road.

Hints were then dropped as to what might happen. "In the short term, if the Government were to ask the BBC to provide an extra service of popular music it would do its best to do so." But then it would say that, wouldn't it.

What the Radio Times didn't say was that the BBC had already started to plan the new station. Robin Scott would, a few months later, be appointed to mastermind the operation - initially he was to become the Controller of the Light Programme but was already lined-up as de facto head of the new service. By now the BBC had successfully negotiated another two hours per day of extra needletime. Scott was given an additional £200,000 budget to carve out the two new networks from the remains of the Light Programme. He spent the early part of 1967 "listening, planning playing back audition tapes, drafting and redrafting schedules, taping the pirate stations' output, calculating and recalculating the allocation of the sparse needletime to the DJ shows which the new network would feature."

Publically the Corporation was suggesting it wouldn't be non-stop pop: "Now, there is to be only this one network of continuous popular music, and it is obvious that no single taste can be met in it at the same time. So what we are aiming at is a good, lively mixture, with special times of the day regularly earmarked for particular attention to such well-defined sections of the audience as the pop-lovers". In the event it wasn't all pop, at least not initially, as flicking through back issues of the Radio Times  shows the evenings were given over to folk, country, jazz and easy listening in programmes shared with Radio 2.

At the end of June 1967 the Postmaster General, by now Edward Short (who'd replaced Benn after the 1966 General Election and the aftermath of the Reg Calvert shooting), announced that "Radio 247" (as it was referred to at that point, a name initially favoured by Robin Scott) would launch on 30 September and that it would be "a robust music service" Whatever that means? The following day in Parliament he used the name "Radio 1" "as I understand it is to be called." (For some of the other suggested names see Standby for Switching.)

The next month the Director of Radio, Frank Gillard, made public the plans to 'kill off' the Home, Light and Third and replace it with radio by numbers. Gillard was very much behind the new naming system, he thought the name Home Service "ludicrous" Taking his cue from the BBC1 and BBC2 television service Radio 247 would be Radio 1. Because they would share programming the Light would be Radio 2. Carrying echoes of the Third Programme name that group of services - it included the Music Programme, the Sports Service and the Study Session - was branded Radio 3, meaning the Home became Radio 4.

At the beginning of September Robin Scott introduced the names of the DJs that would grace Radio 1, and many of them would pose for that famous photo on the steps of All Souls in Langham Place. There were about 30 names on the list, about half ex-pirates, the remainder existing BBC staff or contracted broadcasters. Most were on a try-out with many contracts offered for eight weeks rather than the usual thirteen. The station required a large number of jocks partly because it retained the old Light Programme system of having different presenters each day for some shows such as Midday Spin and Late Night Extra.

Former pirates: Tony Blackburn, Pete Brady, Dave Cash, Chris Denning, Kenny Everett, Duncan Johnson, Mike Lennox, John Peel, Keith Skues, Ed Stewart, Mike Ahern, Emperor Rosko, Simon Dee, Mike Raven and Stuart Henry.

Non-pirates: Barry Alldis, Keith Fordyce, Alan Freeman, Tony Hall (presented The Joe Loss Show), Bob Holness, Jack Jackson, Ray Moore, Johnny Moran, Don Moss, Pete Murray, Pete Myers, Denny Piercey, David Rider, David Symonds, Miranda Ward (worked as a reporter on Scene and Heard but never had her own show), Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young.

The bulk of the stripped weekday shows would be looked after by just four DJs: Tony Blackburn at breakfast, Jimmy Young mid-mornings, Pete Brady early afternoons and David Symonds the teatime slot.   

In the 16 September 1967 issue of the Radio Times, Robin Scott outlined his plans for Radio 1 and Radio 2.

Meanwhile on the Light Programme Kenny Everett was helping to promote the new service.

So how did it all sound? Well thankfully some off-air recordings exist of the start of both Radio 1 and Radio 2. Staff announcer Paul Hollingdale - having been selected by Robin Scott as "the natural choice" ahead of the usual Saturday morning announcer Bruce Wyndham - kicked things off at 5.30 a.m. for Radio 2. Just before 7 a.m. that subsequently much-played clip of Scott introducing the new service, George Martin's specially commissioned Theme One and then Tony's "and welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1" launched Radio 1. This particular edit was put together by Stuart Busby.

Now you're probably thinking that the BBC Sound Archive kept a copy of the full day's output, but you'd be mistaken. Retained are Roger Moffat's closing announcement for the Light Programme, Paul Hollingdale's Radio 2 opening, all of Tony with his Daily Disc Delivery, the start and some extracts from Leslie Crowther on Junior Choice (clip below), all of Rosko's Midday Spin and the afternoon music magazine show Scene and Heard.

Keith Skues took over Saturday Club from Brian Matthew on Day 1 but all that exists of it is a clip from a home recording (below) as someone obviously started their tape recorder ready for Rosko's show. Keith told me that he'd asked his parents to record his first Radio 1 broadcast but that "they became totally confused at 10 o'clock when Max Jaffa kicked in" (over on Radio 2)  so he never did get his recording. He continued: "They could not discover Radio One until I visited them a few weeks later. I think they preferred Max Jaffa to the kind of music I was playing!"

How was the new station received by listeners? It was mixed. "It isn't as good as Radio London or Caroline because the DJs don't sound so spontaneous". "Radio 1 is a pale imitation of the happy-go-lucky independent programmes". "I won't miss the pirates. I think I will go along with Radio 1." "I was very surprised it was so groovy". 

As for the press it was a similarly mixed picture. "Good in parts" (NME) "Auntie has lifted her skirt at last - and revealed a pair of amazing adolescent knees." (Daily Express) "The effect is of a waxwork, absolutely lifelike but clearly lifeless." (George Melly in The Observer) "Radio 1 resembled a poor Big L played at half speed." (Disc and Music Echo). "As a network churning out non-stop pop, Radio 1 is bound to be a huge success. After all, the rivals have been, or are about to be, killed off." (The Sunday Times).

In the next Radio 1 at 50 blog post - the tenth anniversary celebrations. 

Radio Lives - Paul Hollingdale

The recording of his voice will be played again this September. "This is Radio 2, the Light Programme". It was a moment in radio history of which he was justly proud. He was to make something of a career out of launching radio stations - later came Radio 210, Blue Danube Radio and Vienna International Radio. The voice is that of Paul Hollingdale whose death, at the age of 83, was announced this week.

Paul was born in Brighton in 1938. I can find nothing about his early upbringing or education other than the fact that as a lad he appeared as an extra in the 1947 film release of, aptly enough, Brighton Rock.

His National Service was in the RAF and he was eventually posted to RAF Wahn in Germany, fairly close to the headquarters of the British Forces Network in Cologne. He was keen to get into radio and after helping out in the gramophone library was offered the chance to produce a Latin American dance programme. Soon after he was in front of the microphone as one of the BFN's team of announcers looking after the early morning show Musical Clock. His passion was the cinema, perhaps spurred by that early dalliance with filming in Brighton, and he used to broadcast film programmes whilst with the BFN. It was in 1959 that he made his first appearance on the BBC as the host of the German leg of Two-Way Family Favourites.

Back in the UK in 1960 Paul was looking for work when he met up with Canadian DJ Doug Stanley, who'd also appeared on BFN Cologne. Stanley had set up the grandly named Commercial Neutral Broadcasting Company Ltd - "your friendly host of the Dutch coast" - an English speaking pirate radio station based on Radio Veronica's ship the MV Borkum Rift. Paul, who by now has also found work in the London studios of  Radio Luxembourg on the Phillips sponsored The Six O'Clock Record Show, joined CNBC from autumn 1960 and stayed there to the summer of 1961.        

In late 1961 Paul was back on dry land working freelance both for the BBC on shows Teenagers' Turn, Playtime and Things are Swingin' as well as appearing on Radio Luxembourg as one of the announcers out in the Grand Duchy on shows such as The Big 'O' Show sponsored by Oriole Records.    

At this point I'll let Paul take up the story: "I had been working for Radio Luxembourg since the early sixties, either as a London based DJ presenting sponsored shows, or living as a resident on the Grand Duchy.  I was in fact there for two and a half years.  At Easter in April 1964 I travelled to Amsterdam with another DJ, a friend called Don Wardell, as we had heard that Radio Caroline was being launched that weekend. Because the signal would be inaudible, we decided on Holland because it was near the coast. We heard the first broadcast with Simon Dee and I told Don, that in my opinion, this launch would change the whole history of UK Radio. During the Summer we heard the impact that Caroline was having, and I made a decision to leave 208 and return to London in September of that year.  I heard that the BBC were looking for contract announcers and I applied and got a job".

Having joined the Presentation team, working for Andrew Timothy, he would do the usual rounds of news bulletins, continuity announcements, concert introductions and gramophone record shows like Morning Music, Delaney's Delight, Mack is Back, Swing Into Summer, Stay Late and the first editions of Nord-Ring.

Here's Paul again: "One of my first hurdles was to handle the death of Churchill which I announced with all the protocol that went with that on that Sunday morning in January 1965. Andrew Timothy told me that I would have to be de-luxembourgised  and I was directed to listen to various announcers like Colin Doran, Frank Phillips and Tim Gudgin.

Because of my versatility, during the next couple of years I was put to work presenting an eclectic mix of series like Music in the Peter York Manner and Mack is Back, a big band show with the then very popular Ken MacIntosh and his Orchestra broadcast from the Playhouse Theatre down by the Thames embankment. There were others like occasional programmes on the then Home Service with such groups as the Novelairs directed by Edward Rubach.  I was also involved in Nord-Ring, where I presented various light music concerts travelling around Europe which were aired on the Light Programme. In between all of that, I was a newsreader on Radio Newsreel and did occasional shows for the World Service.

I then began working with (producer) Doreen Davies on the show Swing Into Summer - a three hour afternoon segment. In fact I was used at every opportunity and from 1964 to the start of Radio 2 in 67 - I probably presented more shows than anyone else.  The reason for this was that many of the older brigade of announcers like Frank Phillips, Alvar Liddell, John Snagge, John Webster etc. couldn't quite believe that changes were in the air and so they didn't want to involve themselves and weren't in tune with the trends in pop music at that time. Apart from that they were all coming into the final furlong of their careers at the Beeb.

By 1965  the long running Morning Music sequence, which was un-announced except for time checks, news and weather, was in need of a change and Breakfast Special came in being. So some of the 'Light' announcers such John Roberts, Peter Latham, John Dunn and myself were given the show to  present on a turnabout basis.  It was then they decided to introduce a limited amount of 'needletime' into the shows -  one disc every fifteen minutes. And there were inserts of vocals from  groups like The Settlers, The Peter King Chorale, Lois Lane etc".

In September 1967 came that famous opening announcement, Controller Robin Scott having chosen Paul for the task. If the usual Saturday morning pattern had been followed that would have fallen to Bruce Wyndham.

Paul continued to appear on Radio 2's Breakfast Special, presenting his final show on Friday 2 January 1970. Remarkably an off-air recording exists of that show. "Hello and good morning everyone. This is yours truly Paul Hollingdale here for the very last time..."

No reason was given for Paul's departure but in 2012 he candidly told me what had occurred backstage and I hope that he wouldn't mind me repeating the story: "I have never mentioned this before but my departure was very curious.  The then Controller of the Network, Douglas Muggeridge, didn't particularly like me on the air, despite the fact that I was very popular with the listeners.  One day I was called to his office to say that I would be coming off Breakfast Special and that was it.  As there was no explanation - I told him that I wouldn't mind returning to announcer duties - but he was emphatic he wanted me out of the building. I had no confrontation with the man.  I hardly knew him as he was tucked away in his office most of the time together with all the other 'suits.'  My departure created a lot of problems at the time as there was no-where else to go.  I have to tell you that I felt a lot of anguish at the time of my leaving, as I had given every hour of my life to the station, even taking up residence In Hallam Street adjacent to Broadcasting House".

In the event Paul headed back to his home town of Brighton, for a while working freelance on BBC Radio Brighton and also meeting up with local singer Johnny Wakelin whom he ended up managing for a few years.

Regular radio work beckoned again when Radio 210 opened in Reading in early 1976, again Paul was the first voice on-air, or strictly speaking the first DJ, if you count Arthur Lowe's appearance as Captain Mainwaring. Paul recalled that "210 started very middle of the road. That didn't last long and a few months later we were playing Top 40 stuff."

In 1979 Paul helped found and launched the English-speaking service from ORF, the Austrian state broadcaster, Blue Danube Radio. Initially he would split his time between Vienna and the UK but eventually his beloved Vienna would become his home for many years. During the 1980s and 90s he was also heard on Chiltern Radio (audio here), presented film programmes and reviews on LBC, Radio Luxembourg and Sky TV and was part of the launch line-up for Country 1035.

Blue Danube Radio closed in 2000 but Paul continued to work for ORF and other companies such as Inflight Productions. In September 2007 he made a one-off return to the BBC for Radio 2's 40th anniversary to recall his role in the start of the network. (audio here) In October 2012 he launched his final radio project, an English-speaking news and music station, Vienna International Radio. Here's Paul on VIR on 14 November 2013.

In recent months Paul gave an extensive interview about the Light Programme and Radio 2 for inclusion in a couple of documentaries produced by Made in Manchester that are to air on Radio 2 this autumn. Ever the radio professional, whilst in his hospital bed he continued to record reports for Vienna International Radio. He died of cancer on the morning of 5 July.

Paul Trevor Anthony Hollingdale 1934-2017

I never met Paul but from 2012 onwards we had an email correspondence about his radio career and he was always more than willing to help me with my research for the blog. On occasions I was able to provide him with copies of some of his old shows and he was grateful for being reunited with his earlier self. He once told me that "I always enjoy your gems from the past. I think most people in radio in the UK think I have retired to Eastbourne and residing in the Home for the Bewildered DJs.  How wrong they are". I was saddened to hear of his death and I hope that this tribute goes some way to providing a more complete picture of the career of  a broadcaster whose role in radio history is assured.  

Standby for Switching

“Standby for switching. Get tuned to Radio 1 or 2. 5, 4, 3, Radio 2, Radio 1, go!” Surely one of the most played pieces of radio archive: Robin Scott’s countdown to the launch of Radio 1 at 7 a.m. on Saturday 30 September 1967.  But what was happening over on Radios 2, 3 and 4? Was there an exciting new range of programmes as part of the biggest shake-up of the radio networks since the immediate post-war period? Or was it just business as usual?

The relabeling of the old Home, Light and Third had been prompted by the BBC’s promise to fund a new pop service to replace the offshore pirate stations. This had first been mooted in 1966 and work started in earnest in January 1967 when, Johnny Beerling recalls, producers in the Popular Music and Gramophone Departments were asked whether they wanted to work on Radio 1 or 2. Beerling would then work alongside Derek Chinnery, Teddy Warwick and Angela Bond in thrashing out ideas for the pop station, reporting to Robin Scott who was appointed controller a month later. 

In fact at that time the new station still didn’t have a name, that decision was made later that summer. Amongst the names considered by the BBC’s Sound Broadcasting Committee were “Popular Music Service”, “Radio 247”, “Radio 67” (which would surely be out-of-date come January 1968!), “Radio Elizabeth”, “Radio Skylark”, and “Radio Pam”. By May 1967 the use of numbers was first suggested such as “Radio One” and “Light One”.  The numbering of the networks led Home Service controller Gerald Mansell to express concern that the new Radio Four could “imply demotion”.

So what about Radio 1? As ever funds were short so to make the new service look like it had a full schedule there was loads of simulcasting with Radio 2. There was also the trick of billing former Light Programme shows as being on Radio 1, even when also going out on Radio 2. Confusing! This happened for Saturday Club (but dropping Brian Matthew in favour of Keith Skues), Family Favourites with Michael Aspel, Country Meets Folk with Wally Whyton and The Jazz Scene with Humphrey Lyttelton. Even that old warhorse Housewives’ Choice became a Radio 1 show re-titled Family Choice. Some Radio 1 shows such as Late Night Extra and Night Ride would later become long-running Radio 2 programmes.

This was the line-up on Radio 1’s launch day:

0700 Tony Blackburn with a Daily Disc Delivery
0832 Leslie Crowther with Junior Choice (renamed from Children’s Favourites that had ended the previous weekend with presenter John Ellison)
0855 Crack the Clue with Duncan Johnson
1000 Keith Skues with Saturday Club
1200 Emperor Rosko with Midday Spin (Midday Spin being an old Light Programme title)
1300 The Jack Jackson Show
1355 Crack the Clue
1400 Chris Denning with Where It’s At (a Light Programme transfer)
1500 Pete Murray
1600 Pete Brady
1730 Country Meets Folk
1832 Scene and Heard with Johnny Moran
1930 as Radio 2
2200 Pete Murray with Pete’s Party (another Light Programme refugee)
0000 Midnight Newsroom
0005 Night Ride with Sean Kelly
0200 News and closedown

You’ll find audio of Tony’s first show online so I’ll not post it again here. But imagine the shock of any Light Programme listeners who stumbled across Midday Spin – the previous Saturday it had been a special Holiday Spin with Michael Aspel -  and heard the whoops and shouts from Emperor Rosko. Here’s a scoped version of part of that show:

In 1967 the Light Programme was allowed to stay up late and didn’t close down until 2 a.m. It fell to announcer Roget Moffat to have the last word. He was that night’s presenter of It’s One Clock, a hour-long music show with a different host each weekday – in that final week you’d also have heard Jon Curle, Sean Kelly, Wally Whyton and Adrian Love. 
 

In contrast to Radio 1’s full Saturday schedule, Radio 2’s was a little light. It was continuity announcer Paul Hollingdale who was the first voice on the new networks when Radio 2 opened at 0530. He’d been chosen by controller Robin Scott to host that morning’s edition of Breakfast Special in place of the regular Saturday presenter Bruce Wyndham. In fact Bruce was working that morning anyway, but over on Radio 4 reading the early morning news, such was the swapping between networks of continuity announcers at that time. So the timings were:

0533 Breakfast Special with Paul Hollingdale
0832 as Radio 1
0955 Five to Ten with Paul Simon and Colin Semper
1000 Max Jaffa and Sandy MacPherson with Melody Time
1200 Marching and Waltzing introduced by Jimmy Kingsbury
1300 as Radio 1
1832 Those Were the Days introduced by Bill Crozier
1935 Million Dollar Bill with Joe Brown as that week’s guest speaking to Robin Boyle
2015 Spotlight 1 and 2 in which Kenneth Horne previews some of the shows and voices on the new stations
2115 Caterina Valente Sings
2200 as Radio 1

This is the intro to Spotlight 1 and 2:

In 2007 Paul Hollingdale recalled that first Radio 2 edition of Breakfast Special. And if you want to know the first record played on the station here’s the answer:  

Listeners to the new Radio 3 will have noticed absolutely no difference to their daily programmes. Saturday under the old regime was broken down into different strands: 0700-1230 Music Programme, 1230-1800 Sports Service and then 1800-2315 Third Programme. This continued on 30 September and remained the general format of the station until April 1970 when it became more of a cohesive network.

Friday 29 September had been The Third Programme’s twenty-first birthday and the whole evening was dedicated to a performance of The Tragedy of King Lear with John Gielgud in the title role. Closing down proceedings after the Market Trends report (an odd piece of scheduling with financial news on the Third whilst over on the Home Service they had a music programme) was announcer Cormac Rigby. He was also on duty the following morning to usher in Radio 3, whose schedule for the day was as follows:

0800 News and weather
0804 Record Review with John Lade
0900 News and weather
0904 La Clemenza di Tito, a performance of Mozart’s opera in two acts
1014 Ravel’s Piano Music played by Colin Horsley
1040 La Clemenza di Tito – Act Two
1200 Jazz Record Requests with Steve Race
1230 Sports Service introduced by Michael de Morgan with golf, swimming, racing from Ascot,  second-half football commentary and Sports Report
1800 Bach – four piano pieces played by Charles Rosen
1855 An Idea and Its Icon – a talk by Geoffrey Webb on theology and iconography in the Middle Ages
1910 Folk Music of Czechoslovakia compiled and introduced by A.L. Lloyd and produced by Douglas Cleverdon
2000 BBC Symphony Orchestra – a concert from the Berlin Festival with the Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez
2105 Personal View – John Maddox with a talk on current affairs
2125 Concert - Part 2  
2205 Abraham Cowley – selections of his poetry introduced by Anthony Thwaite
2235 Mozart – String Quartet in F major played by The Weller Quartet
2300 News
2315 Closedown

Closing the Home Service “for today, and for all days” on the Friday evening was David Dunhill, who’d obviously taken some care in preparing his final announcement.


The last programme on the Home Service was Jazz at Night with records played by John Dunn. Jazz at Night became the only show to move from the Home Service to Radio 1, finding a home just after midnight on Friday nights. John Dunn, of course, would then pop up during Saturday reading the news on Radio 1 and 2 and making that now infamous “here is the news, in English” intro to the bulletin during Rosko’s show (see above).

It was David Dunhill who opened up proceedings on Radio 4 the following morning welcoming listeners to “Radio 4, the Home Service”, a billing that remained for many months to ease the transition. The schedule was exactly the same as the previous Saturday with the sole exception of the renaming of Lightening Our Darkness as At the Close of the Day. Reviewing the line-up I’m struck by the sheer volume of, necessarily, short programmes. There must have been nearly fifty continuity junctions. This is the schedule for the London area, there were regional variations in the Midlands, North, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and South & West.

0635 Farming Today
0650 Ten to Seven – prayers and meditation
0655 Weather and Programme News
0700 News
0715 On Your Farm
0745 Today’s Papers
0750 Outlook – a Christian angle on the news  
0755 Weather and Programme News
0800 News
0815 From Our Own Correspondent
0845 Today’s Papers
0850 Voices – archive material introduced by Leslie Perowne
0900 News
0915 The Weekly World – a review of the weekly news magazine by Geoffrey Howe
0920 A Choice of Paperbacks chaired by Cliff Michelmore
0945 In Your Garden – introduced by John Hay
1015 Daily Service
1030 Science Survey with a talk on Protection Against Disease
1045 Study Session with programmes on The Artist at Work, Music Questions and Divertissement Francais
1200 Motoring and the Motorist – chaired by Bill Hartley
1225 All the Best from Today – clips from the week’s Today programme linked by Jack de Manio
1255 Weather and Programme News   
1300 News
1310 Round the Horne – repeat of an April edition on the Light Programme
1340 Desert Island Discs – Roy Plomley talks to castaway Roy Castle
1415 Afternoon Theatre – with Floral Tribute written by David Bartlett
1515 Home for the Day – a Saturday supplement to Woman’s Hour with Marjorie Anderson
1600 Music at Four – with music by Haydn, Mozart and Stravinsky played by the BBC Welsh Orchestra and a Ravel quartet played by the LaSalle String Quartet
1755 Weather and Programme News
1800 News and Radio Newsreel, followed by Regional News
1830 Sports Session (other regions had their own sports programmes)
1900 Steptoe and Son – a repeat of Crossed Swords from the Light Programme in July
1930 Gala Night at the Opera – Sandra Chalmers introducing a programme of music recorded at the Huddersfield Town Hall played by the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Northern Singers
2030 Saturday Night Theatre with Paul Daneman and Maragret Rawlings in Adventure Story by Terrence Rattigan
2158 Weather Forecast
2200 News
2210 A Word in Edgeways presented by Brian Redhead
2255 At the Close of the Day – a meditation by Stanley Pritchard
2310 Music at Night – Scarlatti sonatas played by Alan Cuckston
2342 Weather forecast, news summary and coastal waters forecast
2348 Closedown

Wake Up Easy

The majority of listeners get their radio 'fix' first thing in the morning, radio’s primetime. In this post I'll be looking at the history of early morning radio on the BBC Light Programme and Radio 2: Breakfast Special and The Early Show. The Breakfast Shows of Wogan, Blackburn, Moyles et al I'll feature at a later date.

Home Service 16 Sept 1948

Go back far enough through the Radio Times back issues and you’ll find that there was little choice on offer for the morning listener. On 16 September 1948, for example, the Home Service kicked off with Bright and Early at 6.30 am featuring Jose Norman and his Rumballeros followed by Morning Music at 7.15 am with music from the BBC Midland Light Orchestra. Over on the Light Programme they had a lie-in and didn’t start transmission until 9 am when, after the news, you’d hear Housewives’ Choice.

Home Service 8 Aug 1958

Fast forward ten years to August 1958 and the Home Service still offers up Bright and Early (David Shand and his Orchestra) but now after 7 am we get Today, considerably shorter and less news-driven that it would become and with no listed presenter, though it is likely to be Jack de Manio. Morning Music was now on the Light from 7 to 9 am.

To give a flavour of what these shows sounded like here’s a short montage created from longer recordings courtesy of Brian Reynold’s website Masters of Melody.

Light Programme music

This was pretty much the pattern into the 1960s: the Home Service provided the talk with Today and the Light the BBC recorded sessions from orchestras, including its own in-house ones, and various ensembles playing light music, songs from the shows and popular classics before record requests in Housewives’ Choice at 9 am.  But by 1964 early morning music radio was slowly beginning to change. The BBC could no longer be immune to the commercial pressures of the pop world and the pirates were on the horizon.

In January 1964 the BBC sought public opinion on its programming and by way of a week-long experiment some programmes featured singers amongst the otherwise instrumental diet. Some shows had announcers whereas previously the music was played in sequence with no interruption or, as with Morning Music, confined to time checks every 10 minutes or so and hourly reminders of the contributing orchestras. (When on the Home Service Morning Music had an announcer providing a straight introduction to each piece).

Easter Sunday 1964 brought the launch of Radio Caroline. Pop music was now available, to at least part of the country, all day long.  Add to this the growing trend to enjoy music on the move with your portable ‘tranny’ and improvement in car radio equipment and you can see why the BBC needed to change, which it did, slowly. There had also been a shift in listening habits with less people tuning in during the evening due to competition from the television; the draw of Dixon of Dock Green and Emergency Ward 10 proved too great.  Larger weekday radio audiences would eventually be realised at breakfast time.

By the late 50s the BBC was looking to extend its broadcasting hours, there was a fear that unused airtime and frequencies might be hived off to any commercial competition. It took the results of the Pilkington committee and further negotiations with the Musicians’ Union for more needletime to increase the hours – the Light Programme would start earlier and closedown at 2 am and the Third Programme’s frequencies were used to provide the Music Programme service during the day. These changes were phased-in by late ’64.   

Light Programme 11 June 1965

From August 1964 the Light Programme started its transmissions at 5.30 am with Bright and Early (the old Home Service show had returned as a daily fixture from September 1963 and would run until December 1964) and Morning Music between 6 and 8 am. From now on weekday editions had a named announcer assigned on a daily rota  – Jimmy Kingsbury, Bryan Martin, Tony Raymont, Paul Hollingdale, John Dunn, Rodney Burke, Sean Kelly, Jon Curle, David Geary, Roy Williamson, Peter Latham, John Roberts, Brian Perkins and Bruce Wyndham. Vocal groups, such as The Rita Williams Singers, are gradually brought into the music mix. As with the orchestras and bands-of which 35 are used in any given week-most of the musical contributions are BBC recorded sessions, though we now see the addition of “some stars on records”.

At the same time the Light also introduced a new disc programme, Family Fare, filling the gap between Morning Music and Housewives’ Choice. It had a different presenter each week also drawn from the ranks of the staff announcers. Popping up on this show were Bryan Martin, David Geary, John Roberts, Martin Muncaster, John Webster, Roger Moffatt, Robin Boyle and Rodney Burke.

Family Fare 1964

The last Morning Music went out on Friday 22 October 1965, introduced by Paul Hollingdale. The following Monday heralded a new start to the day: Breakfast Special.

Breakfast Special ran from 5.30 to 9 am, 6 days a week and, at 3½ hours in length, became the longest regular show on the radio. Presenting duties in that first week were split amongst three staff announcers: John Roberts took Monday and Wednesday, Paul Hollingdale Tuesday and Friday and then Peter Latham Thursday and Saturday.

Featured in that first programme with John Roberts were The Albany Strings directed by Reg Pursglove, The Albert Marland Sextet, Jack Nathan & his Band, The Des Champ Octet, The Richard Holmes Quartet, Harold Smart Trio and the BBC Scottish Variety Orchestra conducted by Jack Leon. Light Programme chief Denis Morris expected the programme to be “friendly and relaxed, but not unduly talkative”.

The use of staff announcers on Breakfast Special continued for the whole of its run to 1972. The rotation of presenters at daily, weekly, then later monthly or quarterly intervals dominated both this programme and The Early Show until 1993 with some notable exceptions who enjoyed a longer tenure – Simon Bates (74-75), Colin Berry (76-77, 84-88) Bruce Wyndham (Saturdays 67-75), Tom Edwards (Saturdays 75-79) and Dave Bussey (weekends 86-91).

A member of that early announcing team, Paul Hollingdale (these days living and working in Vienna) told me that at the time “the Head of Presentation was a man called Andrew Timothy, a veteran announcer and father of the actor Christopher Timothy. One of my first hurdles was to handle the death of Churchill which I announced with all the protocol that went with that on that Sunday morning in January 1965. Timothy told me that I would have to be de-luxembourgised - and I was directed to listen to various announcers like Colin Doran, Frank Phillips and Tim Gudgin.”

The hosting of Breakfast Special, and the many other music shows that gradually appeared in the schedules more often than not fell to the newer guys, the reason, Paul Holligdale says, was that “many of the older brigade of announcers like Frank Phillips, Alvar Lidell, John Snagge, John Webster etc. couldn’t quite believe that changes were in the air and so they didn't want to involve themselves  and weren’t in tune with the trends in pop music at that time. Apart from that they were all coming into the final furlong of their careers at the Beeb.”

Musically Breakfast Special was a mix of the old Morning Music and Family Fare: pop records and popular/light orchestral pieces and small instrumental bands/groups. This was by necessity as the BBC still had its contractual agreements with the Musicians’ Union and with its own in-house orchestras and daily ‘needletime’ was in single figures. By the late 60s increasingly more records were played and the session pieces from each orchestra or band were spread across the week.  Paul Hollingdale recalls that that it was “decided to introduce a limited amount of needletime into the shows -  one disc every fifteen minutes. And there were inserts of vocals from groups like The Settlers, The Pete King Chorale, Lois Lane etc.”

Here’s a typical Radio Times billing:

Light Programme 24 Sept 1966

From the start Breakfast Special had its own signature tune. Initially this was Jumping Jupiter by the Ron Godwin Orchestra.

Jumping Jupiter

But apparently the producers didn’t think much of that and by 6 December it was changed to C’Mon In by Syd Dale, provider of many a theme over the years.  Later Syd recalled that when he wanted to branch out on his own he had enough money to finance the recording of four of his own compositions and that C’Mon In was one of them. Its use as a theme by the BBC led to his contract with library music publishers KPM.

C'Mon In

Although by the 1970s needletime had increased the use of BBC recorded sessions and re-recordings of pop songs of the day in Breakfast Special and then The Early Show continued into the 1980s. These two extracts should help give a feel for the sound and style of Breakfast Special, by now on Radio 2. From 1969 here’s the familiar warm friendly tones of Ray Moore, who’d joined the programme in 1968.

Breakfast Special Ray Moore

Writing in his autobiography Tomorrow is Too Late, Ray had this to say about his time on the programme:

The show gave us a refreshing freedom, three and half hours on the air in front of a live microphone and virtually a licence to say anything we liked. Here was the opportunity to put a personal stamp on a show, to develop it any way we chose. It was a glorious ego trip for us all. We might not be part of the BBC delegated ‘to instruct and inform’ but we did carry out the BBC’s other mission, ‘to entertain’, and we worked hard to create a show which worked.

From 1 January 1970 this is Paul Hollingdale with the first Breakfast Special of the new decade and, in fact, his penultimate regular show for the BBC.

Breakfast Special Paul Hollingdale

During its time on the Light Programme Breakfast Special continued to be presented by three different announcers every week. Included in the rota were the following with, curiously, something of a New Zealand link and its fair share of former actors.

Bruce Wyndham – long-time BBC announcer on the General Overseas Service and then the Light Programme. Left the corporation in 1976 and later worked for Radios 210 and Hallam. Read more about Bruce here.

Peter Latham – former TV actor who left the BBC in the early 70s to become a priest in New Zealand. He died after being run over by a train.

John Roberts – a New Zealander who was a relief BBC tv newsreader in the early 60s (most famously on duty the evening that the news of JFK’s assassination broke), a Home Service and Light Programme announcer 1964-67 and presenter of Cavalcade.

Paul Hollingdale – broadcasting career started with the BFN in Germany. On Radio Luxembourg for 2½ years both from the London end and the Grand Duchy before returning to London in September 1964 and applying for the job of announcer. See also Down Your Local – Radio 210.

Jon Curle – former actor who became an announcer in 1959, later on Radio 3.  See also here.

David Symonds – gained broadcasting experience in New Zealand before joining the BBC in 1965. Read more in this post.

Dwight Wylie – the BBC’s first black announcer who joined the BBC in 1965. Returned to Jamaica in the early 70s and headed the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Died in 2002.
David Dunhill - former journalist and British Forces Network announcer who joined the BBC in 1946. For many years he was the resident announcer on Take It From Here. Worked behind the scenes between 1956 and 1965 before returning to the microphone. Closed down the Home Service in 1967 and opened up Radio 4 the next morning. On retirement he trained many BBC local radio staff. Died in 2005.

Robin Boyle – with the BBC from 1947, best known as the long-running host of Friday Night is Music Night. See also here.

John Dunn – announcer across all the networks from the early 60s who presented a wide variety of programmes. Later best known for his drivetime show on Radio 2.

Sean Kelly – another former actor in films and the occasional tv series between 1957 and 1964 (633 Squadron amongst his credits) on the BBC from 1964 until the early 1969 then at Capital Radio as one of the hosts of Night Flight.

By late 1967, just before Radios 1 and 2 launched, the pattern had changed to a different presenter each week, Monday to Friday, and usually Bruce Wyndham on Saturday morning. Most of the old Light Programme team  continued to work on Radio 1 and/or Radio 2 as announcers/newsreaders, presenters of Breakfast Special or of Night Ride - the exception was David Symonds who joined Radio 1’s main daily DJ line-up.

When Radio 1 and Radio 2 replaced the old Light Programme on 30 September 1967 the first show on air that Saturday morning was Breakfast Special with Paul Hollingdale.

Breakfast Special 300967

Most of the old Light Programme shows transferred across to Radio 2, but as funding was tight the two new networks continued to share programmes across the week, a situation that remained to a greater or lesser degree into the late ‘70s. The BBC paid for a brand new set of jingles for the fledging Radio 1, actually familiar to listeners of the old pirate station Radio London as they included re-sings of many of their PAMS produced packages. No such luxury was afforded to Radio 2 who didn’t use jingles until 1969. But for a while Breakfast Special did use this generic morning jingle “Wake Up Easy, Start the Day Right”.

Wake Up Easy

I’ve never been able to establish who produced this jingle, though I guess it’s also a product of PAMS. Mike Vincent, now of Mountain Group News in the States, told me that he recalled a New York morning personality playing this on their daily show. Others have said they heard it on 560 KMON in Montana and 1270 CHAT in Medicine Hat. (Edit Jan 2019: I'm now aware that the jingle comes from a Production Aid disc issued by SESAC and is credited to a J. Fegins)

Pepper Tanner provided Radio 2’s first bespoke jingles in 1969. Here’s the Breakfast Special one. 

Daily on 2 Breakfast Special

Radio Times Oct 1968

On 1 October 1967 Radio 2 started a Sunday version of Breakfast Special, its name Sunday Special. The presenter was Robin Boyle, who stayed with this show for most of its run. The first programme offered listeners music on disc plus Clinton Ford, The Radio Band Show conducted by Paul Fenoulhet, Brett Stevens, Harold Smart and the Strumalongs. Sunday Special ran until March 1970 when Keith Skues took over the slot with Sunday with Skues and from July ’71 to March ’72 Barry Alldis. These Sunday programmes had a strange split existence, each show starting on Radio 2 and then concluding over on Radio 1 only.

By 1968 the number of presenters for the weekday shows was confined to just the three, Paul Hollingdale, Ray Moore and John Dunn, doing a week at a time. By 1970 Paul had left the BBC leaving  just Ray and John.  But the all that was to change from April 1972 when the King of Breakfast started his reign.

It was Easter Monday, April the 3^rd, 1972 that Terry Wogan moved across, somewhat reluctantly at the time, from his afternoon Radio 1 show to the new Radio 2 breakfast show. Breakfast Special was gone, replaced by Wogan between 7 and 9 am and from 5 to 7 am by The Early Show.

Like its predecessor The Early Show was in the hands of BBC staff announcers. First in the hot seat was Barri Haynes. I’m not sure how long Barri was with Radio 2 but at the time he was a continuity announcer at LWT. Barri was followed in May by Peter Donaldson – later best known as Chief Announcer on Radio 4.

The programme had its own signature tune, Eye Catcher by Otto Keller. This sample isn’t the one used on air which was a little more souped-up.

Eye Catcher

By the summer of 1972 The Early Show took on a familiar pattern of a rota of presenters, so just when you got used to one voice along came another. Until August 1973 both Tom Edwards and Pete Brady took it in turns but when Pete left the BBC, Barry Alldis was the other half of the team.

It was all change again from 25 March 1974 when a certain Simon Bates became the resident morning DJ. The old theme was dropped, replaced by David Rose’s When You’re With Me, which may be more familiar as the theme to the US TV series Little House on the Prairie.

When You're With Me

Simon Bates was briefly an announcer over on Radio 4 before joining the presentation team on Radio 2. He worked on The Early Show until December 1975 with holiday cover provided by a young Jeff Cooper and Tony Brandon, of whom more later.

Radio 2 Start of Day Jingles

Here’s a clip of Jeff Cooper from 18 December 1974. You’ll find more audio on Jeff Cooper’s website.

Jeff Cooper

On 5 January 1976 it was all change again when the man who would be long associated with early morning radio took over: Colin Berry.  By now the show’s timeslot had been reduced to just one hour (this had happened the previous January) between 6 and 7 am but, as Colin told me “it being technically on Radio 1 as well and because there was pretty well only LBC, Capital and BRMB there was only minimal competition, consequently the audience was huge”.  The audience was bumped up further as most of the show was also carried by many of the BBC local radio stations, who would dip out of the show as and when they started their own programming with a pre-recorded message from Colin.

Colin Berry Outro

During Colin’s era there were another couple of music tracks that became closely associated with the show. For the weather bed a piece called Bikini Parade by the Pierre Lavin Pop Band was used, and continued to be used by Ray Moore. In this clip that I’ve edited together note the use of another song as a short jingle, Good Morning by Leapy Lee.

Weather

The second track was a delightful 1974 single from an Australian group, The Moir Sisters, with the title Good Morning (How Are You?), a gift of a title for morning radio and used by Colin as a jingle, as in this short sequence. The voiceover is provided by Rod Lucas.

Good Morning
Colin Berry 1977
Colin Berry 1982

After a couple of years Colin moved aside for his old mate Ray Moore. Ray’s voice first thing in the morning is the one that many listeners, and professionals, recall with great fondness from this period on Radio 2. In fact Ray’s stints on The Early Show were non-contiguous over the next six years until a schedule re-shuffle in 1984. Here’s a clip of Ray from April 1980.

Ray Moore 030480

By now the show had no fixed theme tune but Ray used various tracks over the years such as Here, There and Everywhere by The Mike Leander Orchestra (he brought this with him from his Saturday night shows) and For All We Know by Ray Conniff. In the above clip there’s a third theme, also used by Steve Jones in 1980. I’ve eventually identified this music, with a little help, as The Minor Bird by Syd Dale (from his 1970 album The Birds).    

The Minor Bird

Hear more of Ray's early morning shows in this post.
 

Ray’s time on The Early Show was interspersed by appearances from another of DJs:

Richard Vaughan – had worked at BBC Radio London hosting Home Run, In Town This Afternoon and Rush Hour. Later TV work includes BBC South Today, NBC Super Channel, Eurosport and voiceovers.

Richard Vaughan

Steve Jones – started at Radio 1 then joined Radio Clyde’s start-up team. Back at the Beeb in 1979 on The Early Show and later promoted to weekday lunchtimes. Best know on TV for The Pyramid Game.

Steve Jones

Here's Steve on 8 July 1981.

David Allan – former pirate DJ on Radio 390 before joining the BBC as radio producer and then presenter specialising in country music on Country Meets Folk, Country Style and Country Club. BBC2 continuity announcer 1969-1994.

Bob Kilbey – ex-Radio 1 specialist music presenter and later on BBC Radio London.

Tony Brandon

Tony Brandon – one-time Radio 1 DJ who’d moved over to Radio 2 in 1971. Tony’s first broadcast was in 1952 in the Carroll Levis Show and he subsequently toured with the show as a comedian and impressionist. On Radio Luxembourg 1966-7 and a short stint on pirate Radio London before joining the new Radio 1 team on Midday Spin and Radio One Club.  Gained a daily afternoon show in January 1969 initially called Sounds Like Tony Brandon. Ousted by Dave Cash eight months later he was on at the weekend with a late-night Tony Brandon Meets Saturday People. Back on weekday afternoons from April 1970 before moving over to mid-morning on Radio 2 on 4 October 1971. Tony moved around the day with various weekday shows on the network until 3 January 1975. Between 1975 and 1978 he provided holiday cover for Terry Wogan and on The Early Show for Simon Bates as well as presenting Radio 2 Top Tunes and starring in his own sitcom The Brandon Family.  Tony was back on The Early Show in between August to December 1978 and February to December 1979. His was the first show on air on Radio 2 when it switched over to medium wave in November 1978. In this clip you’ll notice that Tony was still using his old sig tune Happy Music by James Last & his Orchestra.

Tony Brandon 231178

During this period Tony was still working in the theatre and would regularly do panto, hence his “disappearance” from the schedules around the festive period. Tony was back on Radio 2 in 1981-83 (see below) before heading off to County Sound and Saga. Now retired from broadcasting he still does some voiceover work. 

Tony Brandon 1979

Amongst those providing holiday cover in 1979 was former New Faces compere Derek Hobson who at the time was popping up on various shows on Radio 2.

Meanwhile let’s go back to the weekend. From late 1967 the Saturday morning seat at Breakfast Special was occupied by Bruce Wyndham. He continued on Saturdays when The Early Show came along in 1972 before hanging up his headphones in July 1975, after which he went freelance.

Taking over from Bruce on the Saturday shift was Tom Edwards who enjoyed a continuous run of nearly four years.  Tom’s show was a regular listen for me. With him came his old pirate radio theme Mitch Murray’s version of Skyliner but by now a more Radio 2-friendly version by German bandleader Bert Kaempfert was in use. Often newsreader James Alexander Gordon, “old haggis features” would pop into the studio and help read the wedding day requests, presumably he’d then hang around to read the classified football results in the afternoon. Here’s a clip of Tom’s show from the early 1980 presented, as he says, with “effervescent panache”.

Tom Edwards 1980

By the early ‘80s the Saturday show was followed on Radio 2 by David Jacobs and on Radio 1 by Playground and then Tony Blackburn with Junior Choice so often Tony would pop in for a chat with Tom.

Tom Edwards clips 1980

As Tom Edwards recalls, “I left the staff of the BBC in 1979 to go freelance so up until the late 80s I was working at Thames TV during weekdays and HTV in Cardiff at the weekends with Tyne Tees, Anglia, Southern and ATV when they needed me. Then I went to Los Angeles for a few years but got homesick and within weeks was back at BBC East doing Look East and BBC Radio Norfolk, coming full circle in a way as I started at BBC East when I had just left Radio Caroline for the last time in 1967”.

From March 1979 Paddy O’Byrne was the Saturday host for nine months before Tom Edwards returned for a further 16 months. He was back again for three weeks in December 1982 and you can hear part of Tom’s Christmas Day show here.

By May of 1981 Tony Brandon had returned to Radio 2 to present not just the Saturday show but also a new Sunday one, taking over from Sam on Sunday when Sam Costa “retired”. This was the start of a long period of chopping and changing on the weekend shows and I’ll leave the detail to the timelines at the end of this post. Throughout 1982 and 1983 hosts included Sheila Tracy (the trucker’s friend), Peter Marshall (who’d also worked on weekend Late Shows), George Ferguson (ex-Manx Radio, BRMB and Beacon Radio) and fresh from Radio 1, Paul Burnett.

This is Tony Brandon waking up the nation on Saturday 16 May 1981.

Notice the continued use of BBC-recorded session music and a preponderance of country music, which inexplicably seemed to feature widely on the Radio 2 overnight and early morning shows at the time.

From January 1984 the weekend Early Show was carved-up: now on between 4 and 6 am initially with George Ferguson and followed by Sheila Tracy with The Saturday Show (6 to 8 am) or The Sunday Show (6 to 7.30 am). This remained the schedule until 1992 by which time Dave Bussey (later a mainstay at BBC Radio Lincolnshire) and David Allan were regulars.

David Allan 1990

That same 1984 shuffle of the deck meant changes to weekdays too. After an absence of six years Colin Berry was back on The Early Show now on even earlier between 4 and 5.30 am followed by Ray Moore from 5.30 to 7.30 am and then Terry Wogan. Technically Ray was now neither on The Early Show or the Breakfast Show, but what we would now call “Early Breakfast” or Ray would refer to as “The Porridge Programme”.  As he remarked on the day of the station’s 20^th anniversary, here he was all those years later still working the morning shift – “what a wonderful progress in my career”.  Sadly illness meant that Ray had to bow out unannounced on 28 January 1988. 

Ray Moore 300987

Here’s an opportunity to hear again part of Colin Berry’s show as broadcast on Monday 18 February 1985.

Of the 80s shows Colin recalls that it was “a hard show to live with for three or four years, it meant getting up at 3 am and leaving the house by ten past. So it was a case of living your life around the show really, though as a youngish feller I burnt numerous candles at both ends!” So after his last weekday programme on 13 May 1988 Colin got to enjoy a lie-in.

By this time (1988) Chris Stuart had taken over Ray Moore’s old time slot and The Early Show was back with the continuity announcer/newsreading team personnel – Alex Lester (still working through the night some 20+ years later), Charles Nove (still heard on Radio 2 reading the news when not on BBC Oxford), Steve Madden (nowadays walking up listeners in the Home Counties on BBC Berkshire) and "Voice of the Balls" Alan Dedicoat.

Alan Dedicoat

January 1993 beckoned in a new era, one regular presenter for The Early Show. That presenter was Sarah Kennedy. Sarah had been at the station before as an announcer and newsreader between April 1977 and February 1979. Then it was off to the telly with Game for a Laugh and Busman’s Holiday on ITV and Sixty Minutes and The Animals Roadshow for the BBC, with just the occasional foray back to the radio, such as holiday cover for Wogan in 1983.

Sarah takes The Early Show record with an unrivalled 17 years, though the show soon gained the subtitle of The Dawn Patrol, with the Radio Times adopting this billing from 17 July 1995. Inevitably all those early rises took their toll and Sarah struggled with a number of short-term absences in latter years, covered at short notice by Richard Allinson, Lynn Parsons or Aled Jones. The show was often dogged by controversy (though this was sometimes newspaper mischief-making) and she tended to polarise Radio 2 listeners. Here’s Sarah on 13 August 2007.

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Her last Dawn Patrol was exactly three years later, she went off sick on the Friday and never returned, meaning she was unable to say a final farewell to her listeners. Effectively the weekday Early Show had fizzled out anyway when the title was dropped. The current early morning show just gets the billing of Vanessa Feltz; programme titles for the most part are little used these days.

Meanwhile back at the weekend, and winding back the clock to 1992, the Sunday Early Show was dropped in favour of a longer running The Sunday Show with new presenter Barbara Sturgeon.   The Saturday shifts fell to Alex Lester, Steve Madden and Bill Rennells before Colin Berry made his final return to morning radio at the station in April 1993.

For the rest of the ‘90s the Saturday Early Show was seen as something of a try-out slot with all manner of presenters from local radio, singers, writers, actors and sports people. A number of the shows were also independently produced. Worth mentioning are Mo Dutta who would also cover for Sarah Kennedy and eventually take up residency on Saturday and Sunday mornings on Radio 2 from 1994 to 2009; Lynn Bowles, now known for her travel bulletins and banter with Ken Bruce; Diane-Louise Jordan, the new presenter of Sunday Half-Hour; and Helen Mayhew, who would return to the station on Big Band Special.

Again like the weekday show the Saturday Early Show just kind of disappeared. It had long been dropped as a programme title and when Janey Lee Grace took over from February 2000 it eventually ended up in the Radio Times listings for the Friday night rather than the Saturday morning and from 2003 ran went out from 3 to 6 am.

So there you have it, the history of about 16,000 get-ups, waking up to sound of the wireless or just rolling over for an extra 10 minutes snooze. Raise your early morning cup of tea to Paul, John, Bruce, Simon, Sarah, Tom, Colin, Ray and all the rest.

“Wake up easy start the day right. Wake up easy smile and be bright. We’ll start the day off with music for you, the latest word on the weather and news. Wake up easy smile and be gay. Put on the coffee, start a new day. It’s time for music, so out of that bed and wake up easy don’t be such a sleepy head”.

 

I am indebted to the following for their assistance in writing this post: Colin Berry, Tom Edwards, Paul Hollingdale, Tony Currie, Brian Reynolds, Malcy B, Andy Howells, Noel Tyrrel and all the readers that commented on the first Early Show post.

Help Required. Do you have any audio clips of Simon Bates or Bruce Wyndham on the Radio 2 Early Show that you’d be willing to share? If so please contact me.

The Breakfast Show/Early Show Brief Timeline

For a more detailed timeline you can download a PDF document here.

1965

1 November 1965 First Breakfast Special with John Roberts (Light Programme)

1967

30 September 1967 First Breakfast Special on Radio 1 & Radio 2 with Paul Hollingdale

1 October 1967 First Sunday Special with Robin Boyle

1970

29 March 1970 Final Sunday Special

1972

31 March 1972 Final Breakfast Special with John Dunn

1 April 1972 First Saturday Early Show with Bruce Wyndham

3 April 1972 First weekday Early Show with Barri Haynes

Presentation eventually shared between Pete Brady and Tom Edwards for a month at a time

1973

6 August 1973 Barry Alldis shares presenting with Tom Edwards when Pete Brady leaves the BBC

1974

25 March 1974 Simon Bates takes over as host

1975

26 July 1975 Tom Edwards takes over from Bruce Wyndham on Saturdays

1976

5 January 1976 Colin Berry takes over as host

1978

2 January 1978 Ray Moore’s first stint. Until 1982 presenting duties are shared with Steve Jones, Tony Brandon, Richard Vaughan, David Allan and Bob Kilbey

1979

31 March 1979 Paddy O’Byrne takes over on Saturdays

1980

19 January 1980 Tom Edwards back on Saturdays

1981

9 May 1981 Tony Brandon regular Saturday presenter

10 May 1981 Tony Brandon on new Sunday Early Show

1982

Weekend hosts alternate between Peter Marshall, Tony Brandon, George Ferguson, Sheila Tracy and Tom Edwards

28 June 1982 Ray Moore on weekdays

1983

Weekend hosts are Sheila Tracy, Paul Burnett, Tony Brandon and George Ferguson

1984

21/22 January 1984 George Ferguson at weekends 4-6am followed by The Saturday Show or The Sunday Show with Sheila Tracy

23 January 1984 Colin Berry on The Early Show 4-5.30am, Ray Moore 5.30-7.30am followed by Terry Wogan

There are numerous weekend hosts throughout 1984-1986

1986

20 December 1986 Dave Bussey now regular weekend presenter

1988

28 January 1988 Ray Moore’s final R2 show

4 April 1988 Chris Stuart takes over Ray’s programme slot

13 May 1988 Colin Berry’s last regular weekday show

The weekday show presenters change at intervals between Steve Madden, Bill Rennells, Charles Nove and Alex Lester from 1988 to 1992

1989

15 January 1989 David Allan now regular Sunday presenter with Dave Bussey on Saturday only

1991

30 March 1991 Saturday show presented by Steve Madden then Charles Nove and Alex Lester

1992

4 January 1992 Sunday programme dropped for an extended The Sunday Show. Saturday hosts are Alex Lester, Bill Rennells and Steve Madden

1993

4 January 1993 Sarah Kennedy now permanent host

17 April 1993 Colin Berry on Saturday mornings

1994

2 April 1994 Saturday morning duties change at regular intervals from now on

2000

12 February 2000 Janey Lee Grace takes over as regular Saturday host through to 2004.

2010

13 August 2010 Sarah Kennedy’s last show

2011

17 January 2011 Vanessa Feltz starts new show 5-6.30am